Ambrosia Gloves
by Alicorn Tapestry
Summary: When an unexpected development finally exposes Him and Bubbles, the PPGs find themselves helping Him with an even more unexpected plan. AU. Hibbles. 2nd of the Garment Trilogy.-Repost- /COMPLETE/
1. Diligence

Author's Note:

This is the sequel to my first PPG fanfic, Pomegranate Legwarmers (yes, you should read that one before this one), originally published from 7/18/09 to 7/24/11 and slightly edited. Cover picture is by the talented Busterella on DA. If the first was a character study of Him, I think I would call this a character study of the nature of the world of PPGs itself. While this does have religious themes religion in their world=/= religion in ours . Again, dates in the story are based on the idea of if time had progressed normally from the girls birthday (as five year olds) of November 18, 1998 (the start of the official tv series). I do not own The Beatles, PBS style animal shows, or a pair of magical traveling pants. Swearing happens, but is very rare, so please don't worry...

_**Ambrosia Gloves**_

_The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine..._

_Prologue_

On a pink journal page edged with sunflowers, words danced and swayed in blue colored pencil.

Here and there small doodles broke up the written lines, drawn in a skilled realistic style that moved as if alive, rooted to the page.

_April 5th, 2013_

_Sooner or later everyone comes to the diner._

_If you learn to listen carefully enough you can tell it's not for the food._

_It's good, but it's not that good, even when I help a little..._

_At least the Mayor still likes my pickle and cheese sandwiches._

_Everyone needs a place to belong, even villains._

_They use to stare a lot when I first started to work here a couple of years ago. Really mean stares._

_I thought I might have to fight and give them all new bloody noses, but then he talked to them. Then they were afraid._

_Now they aren't really ether._

_If only Blossom and Buttercup could see them not being mean or afraid...Could see them just being._

_I think, I think they would be proud of how I try to make them smile._

_My favorite times are the mornings, when the first day customers come in._

_Mojo has been coming in earlier and earlier to sit in his favorite spot under the main street window._

_He watches the world wake up and steals the first sunbeams of the day, along with four banana milkshakes topped with extra whipped cream and sprinkles._

_I guess it is true, monkeys __**are**__ solar powered!_

_I still wonder what he is thinking about though..._

_Then Sedusa gets off the night swift, sits down with a sigh like always, buttons up her blouse, and pours the tips jar out on a table for us to count._

_Today I was able to make $40.50 into $40.52 with the magic without anyone seeing._

_It's true you can't make something from nothing, but you can sort of see where it comes from._

_A piece of demon soul wedding ring is a funny thing to use to pick up two pennies from an alleyway, but after a few years it's not that bad._

_Once you get use to it._

_And sex with_ _Lafayette is really __**really**__ not bad...Even on 'only write his name' days when..._

A black flash of color zipped under the star sticker dotted journal, stealing away the larger leather bound volume beneath it.

The Powerpuff girl known as Bubbles yelped in surprise, falling over backwards in her chair onto the floor, long ankle length blonde hair frizzled around her.

"My sketchbook!"

Sedusa's living hair gripped the book, bringing it down to eye level in one sharp whipping sound.

"Relax sweetie, I'm not going to hurt it or anything..." The villainess said, flicking the pages slowly. "Hm, these are pretty good!"

"I don't care! You give it back right..." Bubbles growled, stopping mid- fingerless punch. "Y..You really think so?"

"Really, really good!" Sedusa added with a nod as pieces of her hair seemed to look at the pages to, joining in with their own weaving agreement. "Have you ever thought of going to art.. college?..Oh my..."

Wide eyes focused over flushed cheeks as the once most scandalous villainess in all of Townsville titled her head to the side.

"Now this is.._interesting_...How do you two...?"

Bubbles blushed, barely able to get her words out at a whisper.

"You're holding it _wrong side up_."

Sedusa slowly tilted the sketchbook in her hair, her cheeks growing even redder as a hand went to her mouth in a silent gasp.

"Is that even... _physically possible_?"

Bubbles drifted up to admire her work with a small smile over the stunned critic's shoulder.

"_Not if you're not a puff_."

* * *

_**Diligence.**_

* * *

_April 6th, 2013_

**The city of Townsville...There's no other place quite like it! A bright spot in the history of urban living!**

The streets and buildings of the town were brand new and ever the same.

Somehow, the shine of brilliant new glass in the looming shapes of high-rise structures above a smooth freshly lined sidewalk brought a mellow harmony.

For, like always , no one questioned the practice of rebuilding an exact copy of the town each time it was destroyed.

This day just so happened to be a week after the famous Professor's latest disaster at the annual chili cook off, whose acid goo happened to still be plastered over the sad remains of the china town district.

**A hard working town, going about the hard working ways of its forefathers, never questioning the wisdom of tradition...**

**But luckily, today's skyline has something our fore and even five-fathers could have never dreamed of: Those hard working young ladies known as..The Powerpuff Girls!**

But this barely reconstructed serenity, bustling with ordinary people, off duty villains, and talking animals alike, was broken swiftly by two flying objects that could soon be made out from the ground below as semi- human forms, minus the often seen features of raised noses and ears, and plus wide colorful eyes that put a nocturnal rainforest animals' to shame:

Blossom, her long red hair frazzled and uncombed over a drab brown shirt and university patched blazer, her fingerless hand writing Chinese symbols in a energy drink fueled flurry .

_**Oh no**_**..um, Blossom?**

"Can't talk..master's thesis, research do..."

...And her sister Buttercup, who just so happened to be heading in the exact opposite direction, only part of her crimped shoulder length black hair visible over the open glare of a humming laptop, a large expensive looking camera thrown over her side.

**Buttercup?**

"Give it a rest old sky-voice guy, I've got a deadline to get to..."

**But..oh well...**

Below a crowd crossing a busy intersection winced in mid-step, even big rig drivers coming to a stand still at the sound of braking fragile electronics and torn papers shattered to the wind.

"Oh boy. That can't be good." The Talking Dog remarked, catching a paper as it drifted down like well written Chinese snow and sitting up to offer it to the shapes above with a helpful bark.

"My..my _notes_..." Blossom whispered, one of her eyelids beginning to twitch.

"My _camera_..my memory..c..card..." Buttercup added, her voice ending in growl as both flew headlong at each other, this time very deliberately.

Just above the growing whirlwind of yelling and half hearted kicks a Hello Bunny-Bunny and Friend cellphone closed with a crisp 'click', coupled with a cross, small voice.

"You're _late_."

Both combatants looked up with a startled pause.

"Gosh, I'm sorry Bubbles I..."

"Well, I'm _not_ sorry. " Buttercup huffed, crossing her arms over the large broken camera lens as Blossom began to speed about, savaging what she could of precious school work.

"Really, it's a stupid plan Bubbles, it always was. Sure, we've got to fight crime, but the same time _everyday_?"

"But it is a _good_ plan! It's the _best_ time too!" Bubbles replied with a stomp in the air, darting up to catch a stray cover page. "We shouldn't _fight_ about..."

"It is a great gesture to the town Bubbles, but I'm afraid its just not very _practical_," Blossom nodded a 'thank you' as her sister placed the last paper on top of the towering pile with a smile.

"I've got school and Buttercup..."

"Practical? But _Blossom_..." Bubbles began, her lip starting to tremble.

"We've got things to do sometimes.." Buttercup sighed, tossing away the ruined remains of her weekly Eye From The Sky Soccer reporting equipment, that quickly met with the sound of a forlorn, injured sounding cat in a distant alley.

She zipped down, floating above the milling crowd with a wide, sweeping gesture.

"Besides, the town is _fine_ today. Look! Happy ,boring, peaceful people."

"Peaceful? Happy?" Bubbles yelled, grabbing a random middle school age girl like a doll, whirling her curly black hair topped body in an about face toward her sisters. "_Does this look happy_?"

The Powerpuff leader and the most battle hardened of their team recoiled in horror at the lonesome sight:

What had once been a face, somewhere between the teens' faded rock band t-shirt and below her dark hair, was now nothing more than a mask.

A thick layer of bright green eye shadow sat above a caked on patch of hot pink blush atop each cheek of the victim. Pulled together with a finishing blow of cheery red lipstick too glaring for a clown, the color was almost blinding.

One single pitch black 'beauty' mark doted a corner of the citizen's mouth, the trademark calling card of the 'trashy look' that swept Townsville many years ago.

"Holy moly! When did this start?" Blossom asked, rubbing her hand over the girls face.

Try as she might, even a rub fast enough to draw smoke ended in the same result as it had years before with Buttercup: Nothing.

"It started _on time_..." Bubbles said softly with a smug nod.

Blossom soon gathered a small herd of dazed looking teens from the otherwise unaffected other age groups of Townsville.

A scan with three sets of x-ray eyes of countless backpacks, totes, and purses revealed the covers of well read _Fifteen And A Half_ magazines.

"This is this month's issue. The makeup sample spell must be in all of them!" Blossom said, shaking a copy. The magazine glowed, taking on a hovering set if alive, snapping, speaking jaws from it's collection of pages.

_'''Beauuuuty, Beauuuuty! Make up you preeetty!_'''

Buttercup shivered, grabbing up and stomping the magazine like a particularly huge hair spider, swiftly incinerating the remains with an overkill of laser beams.

"What could make them voluntary put this junk on themselves?" Blossom asked, setting a flame a small mountain of half the magazines in Townsville.

Around it's edges, less than concerned citizens amassed in a flash to roast everything from marshmallows to pickles.

"Must..fight wrinkles..." A little girl replied in a dazed voice to a gentle shake from their ribbon wearing leader.

"You don't have wrinkles; you don't even need to shave your legs yet.." Bubbles grumbled, looking up for the bright flash of teen idol laced pages.

"Bubbles!" Blossom and Buttercup gasped.

From the clear reflection of rain puddle newly mascara lined blue eyes wrinkled around the edges in a smile above double layered ruby red lipstick.

"I don't know, I _still_ kind of like it."

The air behind the three was suddenly filled with black and pink smears of smoke and light, as if painted by a drunken hand from another world...

A world that just so happened to smell of expired liquid concealer.

Three sets of wide eyes watched closely as the cloud took shape, narrowing with almost bored expression when they saw the villain at last:

With vertical hair a mixture of black and silver, and a full purple unitard over a bony frame, the ghost of the fashion diva Madame M was as easily remembered as she had been wishfully forgotten.

"Why hello girls, how do you like my application? Haha!" Mask Saria laughed, sitting upon a freshly conjured flying Kabuki brush the size of a small tree.

" It's mental-ral based now, light and messy with added low self esteem, but still with all it's rouge-imentary powers!"

"Ha! As if your shallow look is ever going to penetrate the mental pores of Townsville!"

Blossom said with a cocky flick of her long hair as the three lined up in their everyday triangle formation...

Or would have, if their third team member hadn't still hovered near earth, suddenly looking even more dazed than the towns' newest victims.

Her long blonde pigtails, normally the color of a preschoolers crayon doodle of the sun, now flickered the dull shade of sickly wild oats under their red hair ribbons.

"...Bubbles?" Two voices asked squinted glossy eyes as they shifted from a pale cornflower blue and back again.

"Hey, you don't look so good..." Buttercup said with a tentative nudge, recoiling as it was met with a soft groan.

"You hag! What did you put in your nasty mix this time?" Blossom asked, putting a protective arm over the shorter puffs' back.

Before Mask Saria could blink a sudden howling icy wind knocked her squarely in the stomach with hurricane force.

" Maybe you should go rest." Blossom continued softly.

"But..." Bubbles quailed over the faint whistling sound of a frozen solid villainess-icle falling to earth.

"That's right, you hardly took any time off after Mojo dumped antidote X on us, and we went on that Floating Monkey Ruled Nation Thingamabob mission, did you? " Buttercup said, quickly supporting her other side.

**Hey! I don't remember that mission! Darn it, you take one day's vacation in fourteen years and all the good stuff starts...**

Green and pink eyes turned upward with a piecing glare toward the air somewhere above and in front of the weakened Bubbles.

**Sorry girls, I'll just be up here.. **_**not**_** causing a scene...**

"Here, I'll fly you home, your powers might give out still." Blossom said, offering a helpful piggy back shoulder.

"Buttercup is more than a match for this silly ghost.. "

"_No_!" Bubbles snapped, pulling away. Just as quickly her voice dyed down to a whisper under the weight of her sister's surprised look.

"I mean, I can get home okay by _myself_, I wouldn't want you to under..esti...mate her."

"What's up with her?" Buttercup asked softly, watching the 'slow' fading blue sky trail that was already halfway across town.

"I don't know, but I have a funny feeling..." Blossom sighed, blocking an attempted plunge toward her face by the overzealous villainess' with a single fingerless hand and flicking her away without even turning.

"Let's get rid of this fashion slave first though. It wouldn't help matters to be wearing the world's tackiest makeup on top of everything else."

"A slave am I? Prepare to _compacted_!" Mask Saria howled, reforming her brush into a clam like hot pink compact full of orange tinted blush.

"Not before you meet our newest all perfected shade, Mask Saria!" Blossom said with a growing smile.

"...We call it_ full coverage_ justice, even at two-thirds power for a _weakling_ like you!" Buttercup added, her smile edged with a much darker smirk as the two joined hands in a small, airborne circle.

"_Razzle Dazzle!_"

Bubbles laughed softly at the distant sounds from the painted villain's inevitable defeat, beginning a drained, slow flight downward .

Her body glowed a bright blue, melting into iridescent specks of light.

The light petals whispered, carried along effortlessly by the wind toward unspoken darkness.

"_Sassafras_..."


	2. Charity

_**Charity.**_

* * *

Into the corners of a room with only two standing walls, shadows layered in gossamer veils. The soft blue tint from a giant lava lamp tubes flicked, their blue liquid contents hypnotic in a slow dance from ceiling to floor and back again, without any rhyme or reason of the laws from the world above.

On the back wall endless black and white transmissions from over fifty years ago darted in and out of being in-sync with the lamps light, casting no sound or glare onto the thick carpeting.

In the center of the small dim room only a giant mound of multicolored pillows stirred. Their golden tasseled corners soaked up the other worldly light, the dragons embroidered upon each plush cushion of the finest red silk, moving freely from one sewn boundary to the other.

The hill of magical fabric and goose feathers rose and fell gently as the sewn images played, breathing thread flames at one another to the newly arrived sound of an energetic voice.

"Lyfee! Lyfee! Wake up..." The assaulter yelled at full blast, her long pigtails trailing into the surface of the makeshift bed.

"Mmmm. Nooo, Mama yoou are pretty_**, you aaare...**_" The pillow nest growled in a high musical whisper, it's entire collected mass tossing over to the left like a living thing.

Bubbles giggled as her flew up higher, tapping the topmost pillow while repositioning something out of sight behind her back with a crinkling rustle.

"Hmm?" The top pillow replied, an even more alive a patch of black hair and two pointed ears followed a loud sniffing sound. Two barely open yellow eyes rose slowly with all the dignity of a lazy crocodile upon an angular face.

"_Ooh, it's you. Haven't I said sooo many times, anything but that nickname Bubblkins...Nothing good ever comes of a__** nasty case of the memory lanes..**_"

Him yawned, starting to sink back downward when his eyes finally seemed to fully focus with a gasp in the Powerpuff's direction.

"What do you think?" Bubbles asked, striking her best pose behind the ruby red lips of the still heavily glowing make up spell.

"Oooh my, that loook doesn't do a _thing_ for you." The demon tisked with a clawed hand to his chin, sitting up from his plush cocoon.

She couldn't help but mask a giggle at the tell tale signs of the newest addition to the lord of darkness' extensive footie pajama collection: a brown ensemble covered with interlinked cartoon monkeys battling over a single banana in each hand.

"Your face shoould be framed by _winter_, not _my_ summer. Here, doon't wiggle.."

Him gripped her chin in one claw, pushing down full force on the top of her head with the other, as if use to captives doing just that.

Bubbles closed her eyes tightly as the odd feeling of a sandpaper like tongue went though it's business of first cleaning one side of her face and then the other, taking great care around her internal ears and even working a bit into her hairline. While she had been though this a handful of times before, the feeling that the whole process was anything but sexual still surprised the girl.

"Aaaa, stale imitation brand magic..." Him spoke at last, raking his tongue in the air.

"It takes forever to groom out, and the split-ends oooh... _May you never know the hooorror.. __**the**_ _**horror**_.." He groaned, retreating back into his bed and popping a single pillow out at eye level.

"**A clown, indeed...**"

"It's okay, she's really _really_ dead this time." Bubbles patted the pile, wiping the tickle of so many licks from her flat nose.

"It's finally finished you know, my collection..."

The Powerpuff grinned smugly, catching her hidden item in a flash before it fell far.

Bright yellow eyes followed a earth shaking yawn as Him slowly drew his head from the darkness laying it atop folded claws. Long teeth, and dragon like scales jutted from newly formed very unamused looking features.

"This is my energetic face. You do realize this gives me one 'wake-you-up-from-a-sound-sleep-to-dance-in-lukewarm-tapioca' card don't you?"

"Mr. eighteen-hour lazybones... It's worth it!" Bubbles laughed, waving a just revealed mailer above the demon's pointed nose with a sing song voice, "The last one came just this morning..."

"Oooh, well, all haaail the Mystic Manila Envelope Of Wonderment." Him grumbled, keeping a straight face for a split second before making grabbing motions toward one end of the letter.

Bubbles slowly slid the tiny gold links of a necklace out, the shapes of a small Buddha, a cross, circle of prayer beads, Star of David, pentagram, and a Ganesh, catching the gleam of slightly risen blue lighting.

Two tiny puzzle piece dolls, with nailheads for eyes and silver dollar size toothpick wings, appeared, holding up each end as Bubbles added a last charm.

"So, which one?" The girl asked, floating down to lay on her stomach beside the pillow nest with inquisitive eyes.

"Aaah.." Him breathed, looking about ready to simply laugh at the sudden questioning, but picking out one symbol after the other randomly.

"This has a _lovely_ point, this one makes almost _repulsive_ food, and _this_ one is just fun to saay..This one is just plain _wrong_, _**but it rolls about in blood so nicely...**_"

"You're not getting burned!"

"My, haven't we been watching toooo many movies. You should know well by now, sweethums, the _ideals_ behind them feed or scar me, nooot the fancy nick-knacks that might well grace your slender neck."

Him smiled slowly, reaching to fasten the symbol laden necklace around her neck as he grabbed the puff's slim waist with the other, pulling her in among the pillows.

A sudden heavy moment was alive with the sound of sniffing and giggles.

"Well I'll be a monkey's long forgotten dusty lilac scented deodorant; _you're_..." Him's shocked voice was drown out abruptly by a much louder wail.

The voice that accompanied a cloud of green smoke, embedded around the edges with ethereal glitter, rang through the small room long before it's owner appeared.

With smoother features and long black hair tied back in a ponytail that dipped with interwoven diamond strings, the small demon was nearly a mirror image of the few other examples of her kind.

"Constantinople? Con..sant..a..opal!" She yelled again, her voice heavy with an unplaceable accent as she ran her claws over the front of a mud drenched green gingham dress.

The mud only smeared more in its progress over white buttons, oozing onto her barefoot hoofs and adding tiny marks to the carpet as she finally came down to earth.

"Daddy?Daddy?Daddy?Dadd-?" The small voice droned on right above her targets' head.

A dark growl answered, turning her attention almost instantly to the more sympathetic left.

"Bubbles? Hav' _you_ seen Constantinople?"

The growl came again, this time accompanied by a slow wave of a much larger claw, that left the interlopers red skin and dress freshly washed.

_"__**Daddy is very busy now, Ursula...**__"_

"Constanta..your teddy bear?" Bubbles said with a gasp, flying up in consideration. "Oh no, is he lost?"

"Uhhuh," Ursula began, her voice growing purposely weak and small. "He ran away 'n went hiding when we were having a hangman water balloon fight. I didn't hurt him or anythin'.."

"Water..Have you checked Larry's ocean? Maybe he thought if he got really wet you might not be able to get him wetter with balloons." Bubbles asked a flash of insight curling her lip.

"Larry likes to play with lost preeetty things, you know." Him agreed darkly, silently moping over his sudden lack of reachable cuddling.

"Who puts _water_ in water balloons? Silly!" Ursula laughed as Bubbles blinked, puzzled. " Sea monsters are so naughty...Myrtle! Suzette! New game!"

The little demon reached behind herself into a whispering cloud of darkness, revealing a small green snorkeling mask and a set of oversized swimming flippers. Her demon voice, that of a full grown woman spoken at an angry whisper, was married by the quick fading sound of flippers 'flop, woping' on unseen linoleum tile.

"** Underwater expedition to Constantinople!**"

Him rolled his eyes, sighing as Bubbles silently floated, still a bit perplexed over their sudden ownership of a 3rd hall, let alone linoleum flooring.

"Hmm..Kids. Such a **non-refundable** clawful. Girls are splendid _dress up dolls_ of course, but you hardly get your_ ten cents back_ with them, doo you? Oooh well..."

Him popped up beside the dazed Powerpuff, freshly dressed in his trademark coat and boots. Bubbles laughed, ducking his half hearted attempt to catch her in a headlock like the battles they often spared in.

"That's silly, girls are just as..." She begin, finding her voice suddenly stopped by his lips.

When they were free again, she found his eyes clear and more focused than they had been for many years, the smeared line of his black lipstick a deadly serious line, betraying no emotion.

"_Shhh, shhh...Nooo woords. Woords only__** cast messy sentiment... **_**All that I've invested for a rainy day**_ does not need more than your face...When you hear..._ _**Let us savor this moment...**_"

Bubbles watched with a mixture of surprise and morbid curiosity as the demon pulled himself up to slowly kneel in her floating shadow, reaching to hold one of her hands in both of his gigantic claws. In what at first only seemed to be a trick of the light, red skin appeared almost more solid, veins upon the demon's neck throbbing to the rhythm of a slow heartbeat.

_**"Wife, unto me you give a son... and in turn, unto you... I bequeath... my head. May it nurture with eternal guilt, He who my eyes will never behold..."**_


	3. Prudence

_**Prudence.**_

* * *

_April 7th, 2013_

* * *

A white mustache wiggled ever so slightly above a well groomed beard as its owner strolled with a happy skittle of legs.

"Mayor! Boston, San Francisco, and New York are all threading lawsuits!" A graying frizzled haired woman yelled over a clasped clipboard.

"Uh huh." The Mayor replied with a helpful hum.

"Mayor, they all say if you don't stop expanding the city without the proper permits they're going to take action that treats our town as an independent hostile country!"

"That's nice." The Mayor said with a nod, opening a window.

Golden sunshine poured in with a cheerful chorus from the passing Townsville Community Choir, giving a willing background to the wrinkled figureheads happy sigh.

"It's going be a great day, Mrs. Bellum!"

"If you say so Mayor." Mrs. Bellum said with her own sigh, collapsing down into a chair with a barely masked monologue. "What will I ever do with him?"

The little man smiled wider, hopping up to sit on her lap like a well loved miniature poodle.

The sunlight suddenly faded, drawing them both toward blowing curtains with a whine of semi-human worry from the mayor.

In a deep blanket of self-made fog, a drowsy silver scaled gecko monster snored on the corner of the town hall building quite comfortably.

It only had time to inhale halfway when a green streak zipped across the sky, punching it's shadow into the depths of Townsville Bay with all the skill of a shot-putter.

"Well, yesterday was a waste of time." Buttercup grumbled, picking a stray scale from her hand.

"I can't believe we couldn't find anyone who knew anything." Blossom agreed, shading her eyes to scan the streets far below.

"Agr, this fog!"

"Got it!" Buttercup said with a eager grin. "Rugburn Zephyr! "

What started as a simple tornado grew into a blue tinted moisture drinking tunnel of hot air, leaving no trace of the fog ...and a dried up lake spotted in a rain of early morning garbage men and street sweepers.

The wind cooled to a pale green, doubling back.

Sad remains of Townsville Parks' trees followed from the sky, slamming back to earth upside down.

"Wa..I n-need t-to w-work on that whine down."

Buttercup groaned, eyes still swimming as Blossom steadied her arm.

"Why aren't we just asking Bubbles again?"

"Because Bubbles just change the subject. She's hiding, something big..." Blossom said, eyes narrowing in thought as they passed the Townsville University.

The screaming figure of a very cold looking Princess Morbucks, hanging outside a dorm window by a flagpole run though the back of her sweater as they passed, was soon only a dot below them.

"Hee, maybe it's another pet whale." Buttercup said with a laugh, coming to rest on a cloud.

"Buttercup!" Blossom snapped, floating down to rest cross-legged beside her with a glare.

"It wasn't me, Bubbles must have done it last night, I'll get Miss. Moneybags down..."

"Later." Blossom said with a smile.

"So, we've asked all the townsfolk and nothing..maybe..."

"Wrong! We haven't asked everyone..."

Blossom swooped up, shading her eyes first one way and then the next.

"Aw, but no one knows where he goes off to!" Buttercup flew up to the horizon, tapping the air directly in front of her and kicking it for good measure.

"Well, that's the fun of a mystery, isn't it?" Blossom said with a nod, leading the way eastward.

Long after the sound of superpowers fainted, a single scream threading lawsuits and eternal financial damnation droned on...

* * *

Leafs dripping with highly detailed texture parted in the wake of an invisible zooming lens. The tiny world finally came into focus, it's cloudless sky above small animal size buildings set to a theme of cheery classical flute music and a singing in an overblown Australian accent:

_Oatberry, Oakberry, what a fine, wonderful, day! Oatberry, Oatberry, that's where we play! Just beyond the bend, hidden in a tree! Oatberry, Oakberry, waiting for me!_

_**"The forest of Oatberry awakens for the day!"**_

The quaint dirt roads filled with passing animals, all wearing the country fashions of Victorian England. A very prim looking bird in a apron came to a stop with a tiny bow.

_**"Good day to you Mr. Fox!"**_

The fox, wearing a waistcoat and worn top hat, bowed in return, tucking a golden watch on a chain back into it's proper place.

_**"My, and what a sunny it is Ms. Bluejay, how are the children?"**_

"Mr. Narrator!" Blossom yelled, sending all the well to do animals scattering for cover.

The sound of a yelp and a body hitting a very solid floor replied.

**Girls! You're not suppose to be here! It's not what it looks like...**

Buttercup smiled, flying up to elbow her sister away.

"Oh, Mr. Narrator, we don't care about your moonlighting, or daylighting or..oh, you know!"

**Really?**

"We're just here to ask about Bubbles." Blossom added, giving her sister a sharp return elbow to the stomach.

**What did you say?**

Buttercup growled, rubbing her mid-section.

"Bubbles! We know you know everything, so spill!"

**I don't know what you're talking about...What about Bubbles?**

Blossom flashed a coy smile, looking at her feet and swaying gently.

"You must have seen something. Anything you might have narrated in the past? Anything suspicious?"

**I...I really have to go..girls..clean my scorpions..socks! Socks! He wouldn't like it if I was late...**

"He?" Blossom asked.

**My dry cleaner...**

Buttercup wrinkled her flat nose in distaste.

"You dry clean your socks?"

**My **_**wife**_** is very particular about not making..**_**him**_** angry.**

Blossom and Buttercup stared open mouthed as the sound of a wheeled chair being pushed back and running footsteps faded from the sky.

Buttercup flew up to a point in front of their vision, tapping with the sound of hollow glass. "Well, that was weird.."

"You know what's weirder, why are we only now noticing all this?" Blossom said, picking up a mugger passing below like a flea.

His hanging collection of purses soon fell back to their winded owners with another simple shake.

"Bubbles has been acting really jumpy for a long while..You remember how..."

"Yeah, it has a creepy feeling..something's not normal.." Buttercup agreed as Blossom sent the masked robber crashing through the roof of the jail below.

"Maybe we've been asking the wrong people..."

Blossom's eyes widened.

"What do you mean? Bubbles has always been so..."

Buttercup crossed her arms with a glare.

"If you want to keep running around in circles you can, but _I'm_ getting answers!"

"Buttercup! I didn't _mean_...Wait up!"

"You really do judge people the same way forever don't you?"

Buttercup snorted, turning to lay on her back and catch the sight of her swiftly gaining sister.

" I bet it just nags and nags you all the time when anyone..."

"Does not!"

The green powerpuff cupped her fingerless hands around her mouth.

"I love fuzzy baby _penguins_ and I can _bake_ MxM cookies. _Good ones_." Came the whisper.

"Buttercup...really?" Blossom said, slowing in shock.

"Huh, you'll never know, will you?" Buttercup laughed.

"Come on, lets ask these lowlifes about Bubbles before we catch their cooties..."

"Aren't we a little old for cooties?"

Blossom wrinkled her flat nose.

"Not their's." Buttercup said with an open mouthed grin, drawing a rare giggle from her sister.

* * *

The smell of grease, gasoline, and new upholstery filled the small, busy space of the Greenoline Auto Repair Shop.

On the floor, still showing the signs of a long days night from tinkering and limited equipment, Big Billy slept on.

The jack that was his enormous stomach rose and fell like the sea under a VMJ Beetle, his inhuman strength giving it the appearance of an oddly shaped metal feather.

A green streak darted here and there in the background, petting the beaten clunkers within with a mixture of rags and a sledgehammer fist.

"Bubbles? Hey, we haven't had any trouble with you's girls in weeks." Ace voice wavered, sweat pooling over an oil spotted bandanna.

Even at her full adult height, which happened to fall just short of the gang leader's upper chest on a very slim flame, Blossom was an imposing figure.

"Yesss, and we've not about to sssstart now, ssso ssscraml!" Snake growled, pushing the freshly captured Buttercup from among sparkling car flames and adding her to where Blossom stood.

The garage door slammed with a self-righteous cloud of dust.

* * *

A smile of bright lipstick slowly spread under the shadowing hood of a beauty parlor hairdryer.

"Haha, I could tell you. But it's not really worth a years growth of my hair..."

Sedusa lifted the drier gently, petting a lock of her hair as it curled around a collection of shampoo bottles.

" Besides, I'm just a poor, innocent citizen on parole. It wouldn't be very law abiding to forcefully interrogate a helpless mother, would it, girls?"

The hair lock tightened around a bottle, conditioning a nearby wrinkled ladies' face.

* * *

"She's right..." Blossom sighed, floating out onto the worn sidewalk.

A snap of one flat side of a fingerless hand against the other broke the gloomy silence.

"Why don't we ask someone who's got nothing to lose?" Buttercup grinned.

"Nothing to lose?" Blossom said with a raised brow.

"Mojo?" Came the suggestion.

Overhead, Blossom's streak came to a dead, colorless halt, her casual tone strained.

"N..no, Mojo wouldn't be a good idea..."

"You're right.." Buttercup tapped her chin, not noticing anything amiss. Above, her sister sighed in silent relief.

"We need someone with a lower profile anyways...someone so stupid that no one would notice or care if..."

* * *

_No Loitering! Laundromat Hours 10 am- 8 pm. Jiffy Wash and Dry Thanks You!_

The viscus 'face' of Slim stared up at the worn sign, staring to sweat as a single chip of paint peeled from its edge.

Ever so slowly, he drew his 'neck' down once more, staring with deadly concentration into the soapy depths.

"The red's finally catch'n the green." Bossman commented with a nod.

"Yup." Junior agreed, chewing a bit of gum over the increasing stakes of red and green sock washing.

Slim's line of vision was drawn up yet again, the words _No_ and _Loitering_ following one another sending a hollow shiver over his frame.

"Aw Bossman, I don't think we should..."

"What a matter with you's guys?" Bossman griped Slim in a length of cellular 'fist'. "I said a whole wash'n and dry'n and that's what it's gonna be! No chick'n out!"

"Aw..." Slim sighed as Junior chewed on.

"Amoeba Boys!" Two cheery voices called over the ring of an old fashion opening door bell.

The three would be villains oozed up with wide smiles.

"Powerpuff girls! Are you here's to arrest us?" Bossman asked.

Three 'hands' pointed up quickly toward the bold lettering of the sign with energetic glee.

"See? Bad right?"

Buttercup slapped her forehead with a groan.

"That's great, boys, really...but you know what we're really annoyed with lately?" Blossom dimmed her voice down to a painstakingly slow speed.

"What?" The monocular mobsters asked.

"Oh yeaah, there is something that would have us throwing real villains in jail left and right if they even breathed a word of it..."

Buttercup floated around their washer slowly followed by a needy, vacant gaze.

"A word about what?" Junior asked, chewing his gum louder.

"Oh..something about Bubbles?" Buttercup suggested, landing atop the washer with a crash. The machine groaned, it's contents sputtering out onto grimy title.

"What about Bubbles?" Junior asked, oozing toward the washers' regurgitated mess of clothing and soapy water with all the focus of a snake handler.

"Oh anything odd, bad, _unusual_..." Blossom continued casually.

The three would-be villains paused for a full minute, eyes captured by the epic, floating journey of a rainbow swirled sphere overhead.

"How they're all pretty 'n shiny?" Bossman said with a weak glance.

"Not soap bubbles geniuses, our sister Bubbles!" Buttercup screamed, grabbing up Bossman and slapping him like a flopping piece of meat against the nearest dryer door.

"Something!"

_Slam!_

"...about our sister Bubbles!"

_Slam!_

"..that would make us really mad!"

_Slam!_

"...and arrest you!"

"What's worst than being married to Him?" Bossmans' bedraggled voice whimpered as Blossom drew near to wrestle Buttercup's hands away.

"Married?" Both powerpuffs gasped.

Blossom's replacement grip was deadly tight in a flash, turning the blue 'flesh' of Bossmans' body a air deprived white.

"Him? Him who?"

"Who's doesn't know 'bout Him? And you girls call us stupid..." Junior rolled his eyes, slipping a single dripping wet red sock onto his 'foot' side.

"Who?"

"Him! The bossman of all bossmans!"

Bossman said, finally growing bored of one single form of punishment and oozing free.

He smiled, redepositing his trademark hat atop his 'head' at a shadowing angle.

"Arrested forever just for breathin', but never caught."

"He's real smart." Slim added helpful, finally drawn up from watching Juniors' soggy progress.

"Lobster claws. Scary eyes. You've girls beat 'em up lots 'o times." Bossman nodded.

"But.. those fights were only...night..mares..."

Blossom and Buttercup's voices came to a dead stop as the weight of a realization left their eyes wide and unblinking.

"Hey! Aren't you gonna a least punch us up some more ?" Bossman whimpered a second later at the fading lines beyond the now broken glass door.

* * *

"What if Bubbles was telling the truth all this time? Trying to tell us?"

Blossom and Buttercup's streaks weaved in a worried webbing over the city, climbing their way to the highest point of Townsville Tower.

The mirror lined globe at its peak shown brilliantly, countless dots of humanity moving in the hopeless snarl morning traffic jams and crowds.

"That's crazy, it's not as if we're just going to find Bubbles and a creature of pure evil just strolling down the..."

"Wait, do you hear something?" Both superheroines stopped in place, cupping their internal ears, their superhearing taking a zigzag of twisting avenues a block at a time.

"It's okay..."

_'That's Bubbles!'_

"But I want to! Pleeeeese? **Please!**"

_'And that's...who is that?'_

"Oh okay..if you really want them..."

A rustle of paper and plastic thundered, making the still far away Blossom winch.

"I am soo willing **so** **able, let me**, let me open jaaars..."

"You just break them!"

_'Hmm..wait, I remember now, there is only one logical person..creature..thing!'_

"See? Then you have open jaars _and_ more shelves for our ceramic kittens, everyone wins!"

"_IT'S HIM!_" Blossom growled, slamming down to earth, with Buttercup in tow a breath later.

Bubbles stopped dead in place side by side with the slim fur coat trimmed demon, falling to her knees in shock.

Silent dry sobs began to weave in the heavy air as she turned to lean heavily against a polished boot.

Him, his long arms weighted down with six brightly colored boutique bag on each side, blinked.

"Well, this is awkward." The high, somber reply echoed.


	4. Chastity

_**Chastity.**_

* * *

_April 6th, 2013_

* * *

Her watchful focus on the back of the demons' head gave no reply.

The interwoven path of veins below bright red skin pulsed with a quicker than human pace...

Waiting.

When a minute more came and went, the slight movement joined with a twitch and a shiver across broad shoulders.

"_I'm...you want me to...what?_" The small voice finally spoke, forced past a heavy breath.

"**Eat my head of course, **_**go on**_**!**" The strained answer was like fingernails on a chalkboard made of earth fired stone, its' words making no attempt to even pass for human.

"And...I'm..." Bubbles eyes began to tear in confusion and fear.

"**Pregnant. Yes, hurrah and a basket of frankincense. Now...**_**do it**_**!**"

The small frame was darker as it presented itself to the girl again, its' red skin drawing all light into its body to glow in pulsing blackness.

Again the pause.

_"No."_

"**You mean**..**.You're not** going to kill me?" Two small, green eyes with dim grey pupils glanced upward and around a tattered mane of black hair.

Bubbles shook her head with a distant look before returning to considering her smooth un-belly buttoned marked stomach.

"But that's the way it's _always_ been done,** father to..."**

Bubbles shook her head again, tears running over a defiant lip, her voice softer still.

"Well, _it's not my way._"

"**I'm..**I'm going to see...him?" Him said leaning nearer, his head finding its way securely into the powerpuffs' lap.

A dot of ink black moisture burned a small hole in her dress before its source was raked away by a clawed hand.

"Oh..ooooh noooo." Him shot bolt upright before she had a chance to react further, popping away in a puff of smoke.

He reappeared in the air, wearing a ancient looking pair of old fashion tortoiseshell reading glasses on a golden chain and carrying what looked like a scroll version of War and Peace.

"You _would_ have to bring up the sticky business of kindness wouldn't you? You're planning on _killing_ me slooowly with the boredom of long forgotten paperwork aren't you? Such a heartless thing I could nooot devise better..."

Him gave a heavy laugh as he began to read at superhuman speed, Bubbles catching the edge of the lengthy scroll far below with interest.

* * *

_April 8th, 2013_

* * *

College dorm rooms on floor five happened to be only large enough for one bed and two undernourished female undergraduates.

Three crime fighters and a full grown man, then, were more than unheard of...

The added special mix of flight and one dangling the other by a foot wasn't helping matters.

Blossom, silently fearing for her walls, and Him, staring her down with a bright smirk, sat ducked down cross-legged on ether end of a bare mattress below.

"Spit it out! Spit it out, come on!" Buttercup yelled, giving Bubbles another brisk shake.

"Butt..er..cup..Buttercup! I told you, that won't do anything." Bubbles gasped, finally getting enough control of her spinning head to pull free of her sisters' grip.

"Well maybe if you actually explained things in a way that makes sense to the rest of us..." Buttercup crossed her arms, looking away.

"But..."

"I have to admit Bubbles, your predicament... is a bit hard to swallow." Blossom said, her normal breakneck way of speaking oddly broken.

"Ahaaa, a predicament am I?" Him smiled making a small show out of rubbing against the mattress. "Fancy, your appropriate choice of words, sister dear."

The room was a flurry of punches and movement as the demon was pushed over onto the ugly regulation carpet below, under Blossoms' folded fist in a pink tinted rage .

"Don't you _ever_ call me that again!" Blossom snarled .

"Oo, touchie, touchie!" The demon agreed with a claw wave, redepositing his body into the cramped space between a standing lamp and the ceiling.

"Blossom! Blossom, don't _do_ that!" Bubbles tisked her sister at a whisper. "He _likes_ getting hit..."

The blonde powerpuff fished in a pocket, her smooth hand surfacing with a brand new looking box of oversized sidewalk chalk.

"Here, drawing makes it all better anyway, I'll _show_ you what happened, and then it will be okay."

Above them all Hims' claw swirled in the air, fogging the room with pink mist.

When the mists rose the three found themselves standing on a long length of blacktop in the bright afternoon sun.

A full team of loud, college age basketball players were already quickly gathering around the particular, slim, pigtailed figure absorbed in a detailed drawing spree.

"I've been waiting a really _really_ long time, so everyone..._Everyone? __**Listen!**_ _Muchas gracias._"

Blossom and Buttercup flew over the crowd to stand beside her, their short adult heights falling at stomach level with many of the stranger on lookers.

A few well placed 'boos' soon got Him to the front of the herd of young men to meet the powerpuffs with a new, uneasy silence in tow.

A picture of Him, dramatic and shadowed with a threatening smile now flew over a chalk skyline.

The detailed background grew with flowers, grass and trees as the doodle chalk Him stopped to frolic after a chalk butterfly, finally crushing it in a claw.

"See...Lay.., um Him's magic works all funny sometimes..."

"_Sometimes_?" Buttercups' voice interjected.

A circle of red chalk light floated up from the living chalk Him, a small piece braking from within it .

The span of color nearby of a doodled Octi in the scene of their childhood room was broken by the bouncing light of the red sliver as Oct's sewn mouth opened wide, resewing itself behind it.

"... and uses a part of himself when it gets wea-I mean sleepy," Bubbles corrected herself sharply before returning to her super speed fueled drawing.

"Never _weeeak_." Him grinned.

The doodle Octi grew and grew, almost rising out of its blacktop home before Bubbles had a chance to give it a sharp rap on the head with a yellow chalk stick.

It growled, turning its attention to the colorful, stick figure lined streets of a pretend Townsville.

"_Of course not_...and then it goes back..."

The gigantic Octi froze in its' miniature doomsday, as three drawings of their six year old selves flew up to battle the monster, deflating with a chalk dust storm like a eraser filled balloon.

"Only when we started to get along again..."

The three sisters hugged in the sky as, far below, the shadow of a shocked Him went up in transporting flames.

"... Him got all sick and went away before it could follow..."

The red light shown again in time with the demons' fading flames and dimmed, forgotten.

"And left it _trapped_ in Octi when he got all small again, and then, Octi gave it to me when I kissed him and then..._it was me._.."

Bubbles blushed, painting lines of chalk dust on her cheeks as she tried her best to hide from the intense stares.

"..and we were married and then..then..."

* * *

_?, ?, 2005-2009_

* * *

_Here I stand head in hand Turn my face to the wall_

Above the twelve year olds' pigtailed head on the way toward school, a long expanse of black tinted business district windows caught the dim morning sunlight.

Within the black depths of its surface Him appeared face first, dragging the rest of his slim shadow up behind himself.

Bubbles looked up with a scream, wiping the grin from his face as his features were drawn up into a ball of shadows. The ball dipped sadly as it came to the end of the windowed block, losing sight of the blue streak.

His face appeared again on the block following her, this time under bright summer sun.

The glass rippled like water, letting out smoke that reformed into a tiny meerkat, a platypus, and a red furred tabby cat with a pleased bowed tail in turn, all of them keeping a steady pace behind Bubbles path.

As one season melted into another, Bubbles hovering progress pass the street was broken by pauses to look back more and more often, each time greeted by everything from a tiny red poison dart frog in the pouring rain, to a ornate black peacock with a handsome fanned tail on a foggy morning, and even, once, a green eyed penguin in a foot of fresh snow.

I _can see them laugh at me And I hear them say: Hey, you've got to hide your love away_

Bubbles stopped at last, turning and raising her left arm.

The bright bay Percheron stallion that now towered over the small teenager lifted its' left forehoof in reply, bowing its head to expose one large eye below a black mane braided with pink ribbons.

Bubbles' smooth hand hid a giggle as she came down to earth, alighting with one leg on the pavement.

_How could she say to me Love will find a way_

Pink smoke broke apart the outline of the horse, coming back to earth in the glossy black form of a flamingo, mimicking her pose in perfect miniature.'

_Gather round all you clowns Let me hear you say_

The powerpuff giggled freely, as Hims' true face drew back into the black windows, coping her sudden playful burst of cartwheels and handstands.

A red falcon followed Bubbles into the sky a second later, its' wild, metallic cry sounding almost like human laughter. ...

_Hey you've got to hide your love away..._

* * *

"She likes animals." Him said simply in answer to the gatherings' puzzled share.

"_Pnf_. " Buttercup tightened her grip on her crossed arms. "That's _not_ how you get married. Bubbles this is just you being wea-"

"Not _that_ type of married..." Bubbles spoke up, tapping Him and leaning quickly to the side to whisper in his pointed ear.

"..The _forever_ type." A flash of fading power was mixed with the odd sound of a palm tip against skin.

Bubbles' smile was small and cold as a fresh gash across her collar bone up to the crook of her neck bleed freely. At her side, in the exact same path, a cut ran across Hims' skin, mocking his vain attempts to lick it clean.

His wide grin turned it attention instead to lick Bubbles' wound, just before the bright coloring returned to the puffs' hair, superpowers closing the gorey display.

"Part of the magic from it, must have blocked your memories to keep us _safe_...but you remembered now because..." Bubbles gulped, looking down.

Her stomach, which had less than half an hour ago been flat, was already showing a slight roundness of growth.

Hims' chilling laugh accompanied a gentle blunt claw side against Bubbles' belly at a whisper.

_"Betraying me from the wooomb. Who's the precious bane? Yeees, yooou are..."_

Buttercup's jaw took almost five minutes to close under wide bright eyes.

Doing a very, very slow flying about face to Blossom, her voice suddenly was a sharp,promising impression of a sonic scream formed into words.

"Blossom, say-something! Isn't-this-the- part-where-you- start- ranting- about- good- and- evil- and- how- stupid- Bubbles- has- been- shacking- up with this-_this_-_thing_?"

Him, grinning from ear to ear, suddenly drifting just behind her black curls tracing a lingering claw tip on her cheek.

"I love you to, sisterhood of the traveling grumble."

Buttercup growled through clinched teeth, un-turning.

_"Shut up_ or I'll make hurt _hurt_ again for you, I swear-It. will. be. _pain_!"

"Ooo.." Him floated away with a head to toe shiver to sit in the shadow of the still kneeling Bubbles.

"...And now getting _pregnant_ and not trying _harder_ to tell us?" She finished at last, just noticing that the ginger haired powerpuffs' eyes had not raised to meet hers' throughout her whole explosion of rage.

Buttercup shook her sisters' shoulders, her voice falling back to normal.

"Blossom? Hey... B-Blossom!"

Blossom turned away with a shake of her head, flying to stand beside Bubbles.

The blonde puff sniffled, moving so quickly to accept the unspoken hug her path left a blue streak.

"Ooh, isn't it _obvious_ little Buttercup?" Him whispered, with a quick step to stand beside her internal ear. "Blossom has a secret, it smells of a heavy lie, a premium hydroponicly grown one ...not that it _**matters**_..."

"Oh yeah, and why not?" The powerpuffs' dark green eyes swifted to meet the lighter green of their neighbors'.

"Because Jr. haaas _plans..." _Him said with a lick of his black lips. "...and in six days tiiime, our _little_ world as we knooow it is coming _**to an end**_."


	5. Temperance

_**"Once ago, about a time, all life was a joke, a rhyme. **_

_**Bird and beast all had a tongue to hold, To speak in man's word, of heat and cold. **_

_**This time when I was but a mere boy, life a game, a silly toy... To play with in fields of endless gold.**_

_**Human bodies, naked and bold, did dance! Did see our people, far and near...**_

_**Did dance, though they did love to fear... In endless fields...once, once dear..."**_

Bubbles felt a movement and the breath of a light hush near her inner ear, large claws interlocking around her waist.

Heated words evaporated the cool edge from half dried tears as her grip tightened across his dominant claw's textured shell.

_**"My son shall know of dance."**_

* * *

_**Temperance.**_

* * *

The very fact that there was a place quite like it made Blossom's head swim with disconnected facts.

The room, constructed half above the surface of the earth let in the outside sunlight like a green house, while blocking any discomfort from heat or cold.

Unnoticed and unshaken, everyday citizens walked across the top of the dome at a snails pace.

Clearer than any glass, and far too perfect to be man made, the powerpuff leader decided at last that it must be simply a pocket of air, masked as a hill to the surface dwellers.

The sheer suggested power of Him's illusions, awoken from years of spell blocked memories, sent Blossom's head pounding.

"Enough of your twisted games, Him!"

Of course, the location of left foot yellow helped a bit.

Him only laughed louder as the two other bodies above and below his slim frame shuffled with uncomfortable mumbles.

The light from the invisible dome shown down on dark red carpet, making the vivid spots on the Twister mat and the colorful label of Bubbles' tub of cottage cheese stand out in cheerful contrast.

"He has a tail?" Buttercup said, her voice balanced between the effort of staying arced overhead and a disgusted curiosity.

"_I_ think it's handsome." Bubbles said, her own voice tempted by a giant spoonful of cottage cheese and good humor. "Right hand green!"

"You would." Buttercup added with a snorted breath, blowing a lock of crimped black hair away from her eyes.

"I said _enough_ Him!" Blossom said, crawling to the right with a bitter energy. "We've dealt with things that could have easily destroyed the world twice over. _Why tell us about this_?"

Him's face shifted from cheerful to wrinkled with bared teeth in a heartbeat as Blossom's arm sent them all tumbling onto the red haired girl.

"Oooh foo! Now look what you-! **Don't you know how to have any fun?**"

Him oozed out from the tangle, dusting off his outfit as Buttercup sat up just as quickly, rubbing a tender spot on her bottom.

" Soo, little Miss Perfect finally wants to taalk...Well,** I might not be in the ****mood**. Yeees, I'm a bit fidgety after aaall.." The demon slicked his hair, trademark fur coat replaced by a pink pinstripe suit. "What do yoou say? The toour?"

"Oh yeah, the tour!" Bubbles grinned, leaping up into the air. "I want to show them everything!"

Him smiled in sync, pushing Blossom and Buttercup, still shielding her behind, into a flying follow the leader line with a claw.

"Then this day, you maay! Step lively girls, this way, I say!"

"Okay!" Bubbles added as a puff of pink smoke replaced her empty cabbage cheese tub with a fragrant slice of watermelon without missing a beat.

A sweeping wind blew from high above, wafting down in a light breeze carrying the fluff white of out of season cottonwood blooms.

Both trailing powerpuffs looked upward with wide sparkling eyes.

The sunlight from a high pointed skylight soaked into bright gold railings, rimming countless doors of finely craved cherry wood, built with no tell tale sign of support.

Him spread his arms energetically in a silent embrace of the subterranean domain.

"Of course, this is the atrium- As you can see, it's purely a pallet for lovely brass trim- on a clear day, you can fly right up-_Today isn't one._"."

Bubbles, and Buttercup flew over the floor in a smart pace behind Him's prancing gate as Blossom brought up the rear, still looking up.

"Mind the rug, poppets."

Her drifting wonder at a eagle and a miniature jet plane passing from one door to the next was cut short with a yelp.

Blossom rubbed her hair back into place, glaring at the Persian rug, now wrinkled nearly in half in a high bump.

"_See what happens when you don't miiind?_" Him chimed from far ahead, the sound of hoofs on marble almost musical.

* * *

The warm light of gilded oil lamps on the walls flickered in masking shadows, adding their moving fingers to the speckled marble titles.

What would have in any other enclosed space lent warmth and cozy comfort to crown moldings and half realized paintings, kept all traces of warmth close in tiny spheres.

"We'll hold our little coup de grace in the audience hall adjoining the parlor, for the helps own sake I dearly hope they've acquired a more thorough hunting license for dust bunnies." Him said, as the following puffs sped up pass countless doors, egged on by the cave like coldness.

The hallway he had been pointing to moments before grew a slightly higher door frame, producing an odd towering human figure:

Wearing riding boots, oversized gloves, and a pink frilly apron edged with two layers of lace, the sack covering the beings' bare skull face titled with a clicking of vertebrae.

The figure stepped to the head of the line, presenting Him a plastic handed feather duster with all the ceremony of a sword.

"Oh, this is just Hank." Him mumbled, granting it the ability to stand with a nod, not breaking his stride.

Bubbles patted the giants' shoulder with a smile as she passed, Blossom only adding a cautious stare.

Buttercup paused altogether, her eyes following the path of a scurrying centipede that found a new hiding place within the houseman's burlap hood.

"Hi."

"Don't feed the mice, dear. _It's __**unsanitary**_. " Him said, pushing the cowering giant away from the girl with a single claw. "**No, Bad! Down**!"

Air passing into the hollow internals of the creature let out a mournful sigh.

"Thirty-six rooms, all self-cleaning, some self-entertaining, more self-living."

Him opened a door, unleashing a cascade of rainbow ball pit balls, carrying both a wild eyed black cat intent on catching it's red plastic prey, and what looked like flashes of red skin, moving swiftly of their own momentum toward a pit in the floor.

The pit resealed itself quickly, its aged wood finish unyielding under Buttercup's stomping foot.

"A ruuule of claw to not upset number fourteen on Tuesdays."

"What happens on Tuesday?" Buttercup asked with a raised brow.

"Exactly! What a bright ray of sunshine yooou are!" Him stopped just short of patting her on the head with dark eyes. "You might take well to joining the girls_** in their studies after all**_..."

He zipped over to Bubbles shoulder, his voice bright and gentle.

"Harem?"

"No." Bubbles said flatly.

"But, I'd let you be heeead wiife..."

Buttercup forced a smile under the weight of what sounded like a very old argument, slowly edging away behind the towering form of Hank.

"No." Bubbles added again with a sharp jerk.

Him's sorrowful whimper echoed over a pouted black lip.

"Aw well, a battle_ best tucked away for a rainy day._.."

Hank turned his skeletal sack toward the small figure standing in his shadow, lifting a massive hand to hover just above her curly black hair.

"Why's he being so nice to us?" Buttercup whispered, falling into step with Blossom in the wake of Bubbles' fresh trail of black melon seeds, Hank and the small shadow of a slim black cat completing the touring entourage.

With the soft clicking sound of a scorpion tail, a red serpent weaved silently in the air just out of sight.

"I remember Him, you think he would have snapped by now."

The serpent rearranged its' coils in interest as it poked its head into the girls huddled semi-circle...

Only to be met with a quick fingerless punch to the muzzle.

"_Whyyy...alwaaays... the snaake..._" A weathered, weak voice echoed.

"I have a feeling that's another long story we don't have the luxury of time to hear." Blossom whispered back.

Ever so slowly with the high sound of a slide whistle, sticky fingerless hands clinched around a green rind with half eaten melon flesh presented themselves under her flat nose.

"Bite?" Bubbles offered cheerfully.

"No thank you." Blossom said, pushing the almost too good looking to be real fruit the other direction, where Buttercup agreed with a repulsed sneer.

"There's this thing called _chewing_ you know..."

Bubbles shrugged, taking another overzealous bite and drifting to join Him, now nursing a suddenly tender nose, at the head the line.

Blossom paused suddenly, the worn wood of a older door among all of the well maintained grandeur drawing her large pink eyes.

"What's that noise?" She asked at a near shout.

"Oh thaaat, it's only _**the larder**_..." Him replied, waving the inquisitive puff away.

Blossom ran her hand across the rough surface speckled with patches of dark brown, a trail of chilling, crackling, words in a foreign language meeting her touch.

"The larder? But it sounds like there's_ someone in_..."

Bubbles flew over without a word, putting a hand to her lips.

"But..."

Blossom sputtered with a weak protest against her sisters' gentle push.

* * *

A single line of drool fell from the corner of Blossom's slack jaw.

"And this is the library, nearly every book in creation, very boring. Moving on..." Him recited flatly.

What could be seen from a sliver of sight past a heavy door beckoned her with all the seduction of a handsome lover, carrying with it the smell of centuries old paper.

"But..!" Blossom peeped.

"Moving on!" Him snapped, pulling Blossom away from the door with a blinding force, leaving behind the tell tale intentions of two reluctant powerpuff hands.

* * *

Drops of a fresh rain dripped from lust green leaves, greeting the group with the smell rich earth and cut grass.

In its depths, the exotic edge of ripe citrus was a layered crisp tang, more of taste than smell to all that happened to share its company.

"And like any family that has well to do but never dooes, we have the conservatory and orangery." Him tiptoed among lines of rare white orchids, coming to rest in the small nook of a wild Plum trees branches. "Our own little slice of the Dark Continent's riches, all with a daily dose of vitamin c..."

Bubbles looked up with a start as a gold and black blur pounced from the orchards' surrounding grasses. The long, lean limbs of a full grown cheetah rearranged themselves around Bubbles' protruding stomach, leaning down to rub her cheek with a rumbling purr.

"Bubbles!" Blossom gasped.

"It's okay, it's..Charle...Charie. good girl..get off, that tickles!" Bubbles wriggled, racked by giggles.

"Aaaw, Charlemagne, How's my beauty?" The cheetah growled softly, turning deep honey brown eyes toward the sound of Him's voice as a claw reached to rub her spotted head. "Oone of my many gifts oof a most _insistent_ King of Siam... _Forgettable little man, only good at one thing, and that, only for fifteen years ..._"

The big cats' purr rumbled again, eyes closed in tear marked contentment at the affection of a combined puff hand and claw among fresh green grass.

" He might not know that much after all, just look at him!"

Buttercup gestured to the slim, smiling figure that now happened to be trading head rubs and licks with the ruby collared cheetah.

"Appearances can just be there to throw everyone off, you know better than that, Buttercup. This might be our only chance to get some straight answers from this unsteady apparition for once, considering the situation. This whole 'show' doesn't fit the profile of a mad man saying goodbye to existence for one thing..."

"Where did he go?" Buttercup's voice asked, looking around again to see only Bubbles bent to pick a daisy. A new flower regrew in the same spot as Bubbles looked up from plucking petals.

"It's_ this way_..." Bubbles answered simply.

* * *

The darkness scurried, running in living dots from approaching footsteps. Large feline eyes shown yellow the light of the far off doorway, recapturing the outline of Him's face before the three powerpuffs.

The demon crossed his legs with a lazy chuckle as the light illuminated the chamber without walls farther, its many screens flicking with black and white static.

" I still don't believe your methods, Him!" Blossom began, her face flushed with bottled anger. "You could just as well had the whole end game happen while we were sleeping and powerless to...!"

Beneath Him, on their hands and knees, the barely clothed bodies of a red skinned man and woman made a seat with their backs. Two more, their arms and claws outstretched, made a standing headrest of enfeebled limbs and protruding ribcages, their small claws tied shut to accommodate Him's own arms.

Blossom and Buttercup recoiled where they stood, the pure white, sightless slaves' eyes pinning the puffs' feet and tongues in place.

Suddenly in a flash of blue, the sound of claws and hoofs mixed with a grateful combined screech, bringing a quick end to the lamplight.

It returned just as quickly, Bubbles' disapproving glare where she now floated by the demon lords side replaced by a smile.

Him turned to them again, this time in a normal high backed overstuffed armchair.

"Aaah, but then you wouldn't have the worry would you? Nooo, I think the worry, the fear, the thought of the inevitable is so very fitting to your calculating mind, my petunia..."

"Inevitable?" Blossom asked, finally fishing her voice again from the back of her throat where disgust had lounged it.

"Yes, oour junior is promised to a long ago-Oh, fiddle faddle, why should I bore you two with needless details? "

Bubbles giggled, taking a relaxed place laying across Him's lap where his claw began to trace her stomach absentmindedly.

"What reeeally matters is that he shall get a birthday gift of unsurpassed wonder! For..his birthday..My son's birthday..."

"Have I told you lately-?" Him began, looking downward.

"Six times today." Bubbles said, smiling.

"Call this a lucky seven!"

Words were mixed with a lick as Bubbles laughed.

"Pooffing's messed your hair all up again, here..."

Buttercup growled softly at the pink tinted aura emanating from the shared space bubble that seemed to have forgotten there was anyone else in the room.

"Aw, don't let him get to you Blossom."

Blossom looked from Bubbles softly grooming Him's black hair with a startled hop.

"We'll find find a way around this, we always do. We just have to push Bubbles out of the way and-"

"I don't think this is something we can punch our way out of Buttercup..." Blossom said, her eyes almost falling into a stare at the couple again before she freed them with a rough shake of her head. "If what Him is hinting about is true...We may have to take even more drastic measures..."

"I'm okay with that." Buttercup grinned, putting her fingerless hand out in the powerpuff version of a thumbs up they had perfected years before.

"Anyway, our only consolation is that only we know about this, if anyone else were to..."

The sound of ancient gears protesting years of un-oiled use cut Blossom's words in half, dilated supervision picking up the ascending Him.

"Oh no! He wouldn't!" Blossom gasped in shock as the throne rose higher on the head of a giant shrew shaped platform to the world above.

"He would! _C'mon c'mon!_" Buttercup yelled, her streak cutting pass her sisters in a full airborne jump onto the tiny circular space.

"_Stop him!_ Buttercup!" Blossom gasped, doing a full belly flop toward the last few feet of space between the platform and the earth above, only to get caught halfway at her slim waist.

"Oof! This was so much easier when we were five!"

The platflom locked with a last crisp 'click' as the remainer of the powerpuff pushed toward sunlight.


	6. Humility

**Humility.**

* * *

_April 9th, 2013_

In the streets, hundreds of cars stood empty around cramped parking spaces.

A crowd milled, scuffling for the best views at the familiar central fountain statue of a much younger Major, while his elder living twin stood just below behind a large podium.

A closer look by any from onlookers could spot the small tower of phonebooks stacked below their figurehead, giving him just the right stature as Miss Bellum handed him a new page of notes.

**The City of Townsville...**

"Blah, blah, blah bla..." The Major continued, the adoring crowd cheering as he paused for dramatic effect. "Blah blah blah!" He yelled happily raising overzealous peace signing hands to the sky.

**A happy town, a city of blissful contentment, basking in the glow of yet another Fellowship Award, thanks to the ever watchful protection of the Power...**

_O Fortuna, velut luna_

"Blah..blah?" The Mayor froze as a sudden rumble shook the earth, mirrored by the notes of a disembodied choir.

Miss Bellum knelt to keep her balance as the governor zipped behind her tall frame, the crowd on the lower level scurrying to relocate as a gaping crack grew, swallowing unlucky stragglers and one stray white Persian cat in turn.

**Sweet mother of ...Music of a garishly musical tone? But- Oh Fortuna levels of evil aren't a part of our..Oh no..it's...**

"_**They know me, dog!**_" Him's voice bellowed, long before his head ascended from the pit with the wail of of a flicked white ball of fur that swiftly embedded four paws worth of extended claws into a unlucky passing Talking Dog.

_semper crescis, aut decrescis;_

Him reclined in a cozy frame of a newly reformed throne, rimmed by skulls supporting decorative candles . Chains weaved around its base, interlocked around a struggling Blossom and Buttercup to each side, their mouths secured with neon pink duct tape.

_vita detestabilis_

Bubbles drifted just outside Him's line of sight toward Blossom's chains, streaking back to hover up by his side when he again looked down with an annoyed ear twitch toward the depths.

"Oooh come oon now, people, people, Latin is dead as disco! Get with the badly translated dread **these humans can remotely understand!**"

_Fate – monstrous and empty,_

"_**And you!**_" He finished with a snap, one claw growing black and glossy as it stretched on an ever lengthening arm, filling the scene just beyond sight with the sound of scattering glass.

**Oh, why didn't I become a nice safe documentary narrator like mother wanted, whyyyy?**

The fading bloodcurdling wail sent a shivering hush over the everyday screams of terror long reserved for fifty story monsters .

_well-being is vain and always fades to nothing,_

The current demon, who happened to only at this moment reach a height of seven feet, raised his clawed arms in an all encompassing semi-circle.

_shadowed and veiled you plague me too!_

"**Hear me, citizens of Townsville! Unprivileged associates! Common beasts!** I bring tidings of the gladdest kiiind!"

The bolt like mechanisms of his screwed together pincers made an uncommon whirling sound almost like the purr of a living thing, snapping inches away from Blossom and Buttercup's captive faces in a dizzying wave.

The background singers cut of with a sudden silence as Hank appeared from far below, discreetly polishing a long battle ax.

"Todaaay is a red letter daay that will, in turn, start a red _**eternity**_ of _**your insufferable pouring blood...**_"

The two powerpuffs wiggled with a fresh rage of energy, already halfway free from the demonic bonds as Him continued, floating to place his head again upon Bubbles stomach as she giggled into a new bowl of conjured potato salad.

"The end of ends is upon us all drawn with my son's first breath from this earthly ball, on and on to spin and spin _**forever never more...**_"

"Uh..what was that again?" The mayor interjected in a small voice.

"_**You and this earth shall be dead **__in less than five days time__** and there in nothing you can do to stop it.**_" Him growled with an eye roll.

"Him, no! These people can't..." Blossom grabbed his mouth, her own finally free of the enchanted tape.

"That's what I thought you said." The Mayor said with a solemn nod, turning to scream with all the vigor of a freshly soiled two year old.

Peaceful streets erupted into suddenly raging flames as sirens and answering screams filled the air.

Villains and normal citizens alike burst from pillaged shop windows and houses like greedy mice, half their ring leaders left trapping upon low hanging electric lines as their mountains of loot were left to the fortunate lower supporters.

Even Big Billy trotted by with a grin, carrying a uprooted mailbox marked 'The Smiths" as Snake and Little Arturo followed, scurrying under a sofa. An elderly couple, who happened to still be sitting their sofa, only hunched closer around floor plans to the Last National Bank, oblivious to the surrounding chaos.

In a far corner, an argument started sometime before the demon's appearance had since drawn deadly silent.

"Divorce?" Two voices asked

"Fine!" They both agreed, as Ace's tall shadow headed off in one direction, and what looked like a slightly shorter collection of black snakes went the other with the sound of high heels.

"Dad?" An eight year old's voice asked, an unspoken answer to a question that had none dying halfway.

"Yeah?" His father replied, looking down at the small shadow.

"Nuff'n..." Spunk whispered.

The Mayor suddenly froze mid-classic scream where he raced past the small street. His eye switched over his monocle as he did a quick running about face, driving down to a space unseen below the long forgotten podium.

"Miss Bellum!"

"Oh Mayor!"

In the middle of the flames and mindless masses an unmoving, bedraggled looking Talking Dog and White Cat sat back to back, their white fur blanketed in a cloud of black shoot.

"I hate you." Talking Dog grumbled.

"I hate you to." White Cat agreed his sharp accent matched with narrowed yellow eyes.

"Who cares? We're all going to die!" Both animals sniffed in sync, suddenly turning to nuzzle one another in a wave of tears.

"Well, well, the more you know..." Him laughed, turning from filing a pincher edge into an even sharper point. "Aaaah, the reminds me, before anything else..loose ends, loose ends, can't have this one coming back to bite me in the tush..."

Light, a shade far dimmer than Him's own traveling warp grew in a space just below where he now sat. "Not that I'd miiind horribly, but better saaafe, stitch in time, aall thaat..."

The familiar face and square jaw, edged by white and gray peppered hair a shade darker than his lab coat, blinked.

"Professor!" Three voices quailed in shock.

"Girls!" The Professor shouted, barely a moment before struggling to look past Him's knee, his efforts met with a tiny needle of red liquid to the neck.

Bubbles gripped at Him's own throat half a breath later, a pinch to the jaw landing squarely. A second blow was blocked halfway to its mark with the the demons smile, a tooth regrowing under the sound of realigning bone.

"Dear..sleep, only sleep.." Bubbles choked down on a whimper, drifting to support the Professor's weight as Blossom knelt to check his pulse.

"Oldest wine in existence yooou know, lovingly called Ambrosia..One smidgen, ooor something of that measure..he should be ooout for a few days..or until the end of time, whichever comes first..."

Him smiled, drawing a dropper from a tiny bottle and hanging it above his open mouth for a moment before recapping it with a sigh.

"So terribly fattening..."

His glowing eyes settled on the Professor's body as Buttercup safely tucked him in a distant office building.

"But still sooo tastefully aged..."

"Hey Dad, if the world is ending, can I have that pet whale?" The voice of the youngest Gangreen member carried over as Buttercup doubled back into sight.

"Sure thing, kiddo..." Ace's voice agreed with a strained edge.

"Buttercup?" Blossom asked, not even finishing before Buttercup turned, the wind under her flight path slow and heavy.

"I know, I know, stop them from freeing Willy...I'll be right back..."

Him cleared his throat anew, perching atop the throne like a oddly shaped rooster.

"**There's nothing **_**you**_** can do, oh cows and lesser creatures, but do not **_**fear**_**.**.no, no..

The scattered and crazed crowd suddenly stopped, some mid- murder attempt, collecting around Him's platform with the all the hope of a supernatural ice cream truck.

"_**Come, gather,**_ all..."

Him laughed his sleeves scattering a small storm of gold glitter other the Powerpuff standing before him.

"For a hero, yes,**a great champion of Earth**, has stepped forward and proclaimed..."

Blossom now stood wearing a golden trimmed pink gladiator costume atop a solid gold pedestal, blushing from head to toe.

"That she,_** the great Blossom,**_ may on this day throw in** her powers** against the oh so perfectly manicured edge **of my own strength**, in a bid for the earth's _**continued existence...**_"

In Him's shadow Bubbles opened her mouth, quickly stopping to bite her lip.

She drifted over to Blossom, now standing alone under the weight of countless eyes as her clothing melted back to normal.

"And should she fail, **well**...what chance is there of anything **this **_**angel**_** does being less than **_**perfect**_, right everyone?"

More cheers sent Blossom's bottom lip quivering as she turned way, sitting to rake her her face with her palms.

"Ah, it almost sets me _**shaking **_all a twitter right here!"

"What are you doing?" Blossom hissed as with a clawed wave a sound poof dome of red tinted energy appeared over their heads, cutting off any peering signs of the outside world.

Bubbles flew without a word, sitting down in the air before settling her new unsteady center of balance beside Blossom.

"My best work yet dear, _**my very best**_..." Him nodded, the light of a transporting beam glowing to one side of their enclosure, revealing a very puzzled looking Mojo Jojo in helmet, robe, and reading glasses. "Oops! Ooo, clumsy mee..my magic is sooo butterfingered sometimes!"

Blossom looked up from Bubbles' arm, her eyes growing wide and glossy.

"Why am I here? I, Mojo Jojo, who was presently and now formally researching that which would currently require me to be elsewhere,"

Mojo raged, his everyday ranting tone falling ever so slightly every time his pacing and punching around the suddenly apparent dome wall brought his path past Him's black boots.

"...than the place in this proximity I am occupying now without any expectation as to why..."

Mojo froze as his rage seemed to die down, clearing the vision of his own eyes, their gaze softening within barely wrinkled smile lines.

"Oh Blossom, you are here to? This is an most unexpected turn of events most awkward in nature..."

The chimp, his full size still only now reaching the powerpuff's own adult height, slowly edged forward inch by inch with each heavy pause.

"As previous attempts on my part... have been ineffective in reinitializing... corresponding correspondence... when I believed our past occupation... of close spatial distance... to... be.. very... mut..ua..lly.. beneficial."

For the first time in her long history with both the raging villain and her all knowing sister, Bubbles watching in silent awe as the two stood, completely silent, staring at a shared spot on the ground between them.

"Even without explanation or knowledge of the meaning of my relocation by extraordinary means, I am grateful.." Mojo looked up shyly, his arms flying out in full bear hug. "Which is to say, I missed you!"

Bubbles gasped as Blossom's powerful hug answered the villains' own.

"Blossom? You and Mojo? Really? When? How?" Her voice picked up more and more excited volume, as unspoken moments of months past seemed to click into place. "So that's why you and..you and..."

Bubbles grinned, hugging them both where words left off.

"Oooh, the heartfelt honestly level is downright nauseating..."

Him purred, taking Bubbles place to hover over the two as the sound of his voice drew Mojo's head closer to Blossom, a low, territorial screech curling his lip.

"But heeere's where it gets especially interesting monkey, before those adolescent sensibilities of yours get tooo warm and fuzzy..."

Mojo's screech grew to a full volume as he stepped away from the Powerpuff, reaching to swat at Him like a large leather clad fly.

"What is this? I, Mojo Jojo object to the accusation that my metal age is less than mature! I am an adult, which is to say..."

"Blah, blah, quiet time for that nasty testosterone trouble you have!" Him said, a large piece of the unearthly pink tape floating to bind the chimps' wrinkled mouth. "Now, do you know what yoour little Blossom..."

Buttercup flew through the top of the dome at that moment, depositing a very wet looking Ace and son just outside it's surface.

"... has to do tooo save the world?"

"Whatever it is, we'll do it , Him." Blossom nodded.

"All of us." Bubbles agreed with a happy energy.

"Together!" Buttercup finished, only giving the new existence of Mojo Jojo within the dome the smallest of uninterested glances.

"But of course..." Him's eyes grew into long cat-like slits as he stroked the air with a claw. drawing from nothingness the moisture of the surrounding spring air into a large floating sphere. It's surface rippled, playing out the scene of three tiny shadow puppets being dipped into a bubbling liquid.

_**"They must be killed. Killed and slipped into a specially designed form of containment pods which only you**_ can constrict with that wee monkey..."

"Chimpanzee!" Mojo screeched, rubbing the spots on his now hairless lips.

The scene zoomed out, showing the black liquid actually placed in large tubs under the watchful guard of an armor covered green knight.

"...mind to be reanimated if they should succeed when..."

"No." Mojo growled as Buttercup's surprised gasp and wrinkled flat nose in the background seemed to only reinforce his decision.

""But, why-ever nooot? Why would Mojo Jojo, the oldest enemy written of in Powerpuff lore, be agaaainst the tasty fulfillment of his greatest wiiish?"

"Blossom? What is he getting at? Why..." Buttercup asked as Blossom turned away.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the leader of the Powerpuffs landed, beginning to walk the short distance of the platform.

"That is in fact, I, Mojo Jojo's wish," He began taking on the odd, even tone of a storyteller, as the water globe floated above them all, flashing a long string of giant robots.

"... as Mojo Jojo is the title of myself, the villain who lives for the destruction of the Powerpuff Girls..."

A long ago shadow of a crazed Mojo loomed tall, now wearing the ceiling of city hall as a makeshift crown.

"...and in the past has done everything to fulfill the realization of decapitation, dismemberment, and otherwise unsavory ends for those three..." Mojo smiled as the memory of a white uniform and a dove landing on a finger flashed into view and faded just a swiftly. "...that would stand in my way of world domination ..."

The hum of Him, returning to his seat with a freshly popped bowl of popcorn in the background, went completely unnoticed.

"But, this is not the wish of Jojo." A small voice whispered, its rising and falling syllables edged by random vocalizations. "No, Jojo does not wish for the death of Blossom...as such a death would be as Jojo's own..."

Hairy arms clasped around Blossom, the passionate hug drawing the start of tears as it was this time met with the soft stroking of his hair.

_"No. No..."_ Choked words whispered, barely above the level of superhearing .

"Buttercup I.." Blossom gasped, drawing from Mojo's embrace.

_"No, no...You can't..."_

Him's eyes lengthened in silent glee, darting back and forth between the two.

"Buttercup, I was going to, I wanted to, when we were on the Asteroid M mission ..."

"You? You and Mojo.. you..fake...you lair!" A defiant back met Blossom's reaching hand as Bubbles quickly flew into small the space between them.

"Buttercup, it's okay, like me and L- Him we..."

"Shut up Bubbles, this is nothing like you and...it!" Bubbles winched, recoiling from the words like an antidote X dipped blow, her eyes beginning to tear. "You never were the real lair, putting yourself up like some living goddess of perfect perfectness!"

"I..." Blossom tried again over Bubbles sobs where she had returned to the background, rubbed softly by the bunt side of Him's scorpion tail.

"Shut it, I'm not finished!" Buttercup screamed, grabbing Blossom by the collar and tossing the unresisting puff down. "

"I trusted you...I idolized you! It was hard work, really hard!"

Buttercup's voice dropped dangerously low and sweet as the water bubble floated here and there, showcasing her memories of bloody monster battles, bookended here and there with scenic ,focused martial arts training.

"But I thought 'Oh, I can work hard, I can try to keep my temper in check, I can put my life on hold to train day and night and act like I like it because that is what Blossom would do! That is what Blossom would want because she never gives in, she always works against all levels of evil, she never compromises, never gives them an inch..."

The magical bubble drifted downward, popping upon the length of a battle worn palm.

"But..."

"An _inch_!" Buttercup snapped .

Him nearly choked on handful of popcorn, Bubbles' tears rising to a full wail.

"And if you think I'm going along with this _stupid _mission for any _other _reason than having a _miserable planet _to come home to with my _sister _Bubbles and her baby ...you're an even bigger stupid liar than Him..."

The hollow thud of a small ginger haired body falling to the earth mixed with a sob.

"Fuck it."

Buttercup growled, the light of her streak ricocheting with a superpowered kick below the pink trim of Him's fur coat at one end and meeting with a very flustered looking Ace, blushing dark green with a trance of lipgloss as the assailant vanished into the sky.

"Low..class..._very_..." Him squeaked, clutching himself as he fell with a weak whine.

"I will do this thing, but it will not be for your sake, Sir."

Mojo began, looking from where Blossom hovered near his ear, his long nailed green hand picking over her hair of its own accord.

"Three pods will take twenty six hours to..."

"Two... po..ds." Him corrected, his voice shattering half the jewels on the inventors small turban.

" Ah ha!" Mojo laughed, pointing at the miserable curled ball of a demon with a smirk. "I knew there would be some catch as to exempting your beloved of all the powerpuff girls from the fate of medical death which the killing of Bubbles and her unborn child would..."

Him chuckled, his laughter finally falling back into lower inhuman octaves in a extra ordinary display of recovery time for a male of any species.

"_Kill Bubbles?_ _**Kill Bubbles?**_ Why Mojo, Mojo, _Mojo_..." Him sighed, oozing to pat the green helmeted inventor on the head like a child.

The line of Blossom followed after Buttercup's now distant streak lit up the skyline, showcasing honeyed, mocking words in Mojo Jojo's style of speech against an angry neon squiggle.

"Have you not figured it out? Is it not obvious that an equal to my marvelous malignancy would, could, only be? _Bubbles is Death_."

Mojo blinked with a blank look as the sound of hoofs on ancient stone filled the energy dome from below, the body of an animal passing through solid bedrock and concert like mist .

A mustang horse, its surface soaking up and reflecting surrounding color into a pale mirror like coat, nonchalantly bowed its head over the girl, her blonde hair unmoved under its nostrils.

_"This is Bob..."_ Bubbles whispered, petting the offered muzzle with a small smile as she dried her eyes with her other palm. "_He's mine, you know..."_


	7. Courage

_**Courage.**_

* * *

_How do you tell what being Death is? What it means?_

_I feel like I should know, I should tell them...but I don't. Not nearly as well as I should._

_When it speaks, it frightens me to..._

_The baby moves often now._

_It doesn't feel like it should. I mean, like all the books say it should._

_I'm so tried already, Lyfee..._

* * *

_Tomorrow._

First traces of sun returned the memory of color to mucky, endless pools.

Dotted currents free of mud and blood reflected the image of red skin and a black mane to the raw sound of muscle ripped from bone.

A claw lingered, running it's edge across the side of a torn female face before letting the bloated, half eaten corpse drift downward.

* * *

_Tomorrow is..._

"._..Worst recorded flood in fifty years. With eighty dead and two hundred reported still missing the sheer devastation of low rural Caribbean..._"

Buttercup turned from the tv, sending the remote crashing into the wall with an insulation muffled impact.

She turned again, pushing a pile of photo albums off her bed with a sluggish foot before closing her eyes unnaturally tight.

"Always our best, huh?" Buttercup whispered.

The three little girls making a wish around a huge birthday cake with all of Townsville in a photographic backdrop gave no answer, frozen in their timeless smiles.

* * *

_Tomorrow will be..._

Blossom turned back to the window with a sigh.

The shadow somewhere beyond the window frame continued on, eyes blacked under an array of tubes and bubbling liquid.

"The coolant regulator sounds odd." Blossom cocked her head near the fabric of Mojo's work turban.

Brown eyes glared upward with a growl.

"What? I will have you know my cooling features ability is never..."

"Could it be because it's made from a tuna fish can?" The powerpuff laughed, pulling a piece free with the teeth grinding sound of twisting metal. "Did you spend all your grant money again?"

Silence.

"It..was a laser."

The shadowed puff head shook with a giggle.

"Jojo..."

"But-it was chrome plated! It has _ten_ frying settings, _twelve_ alignments and still is presently, that is happens to be, very shiny..."

"What am I ever going to you?"

The shape unclasped a foot, swinging itself closer.

"Kissing me as you pass that wrench would be a most efficient use of limited resources."

A half hearted flick of a superpowered fist sent the small furry body swinging back to its' perch with a nimble twist.

"Do you remember our battle strategy?"

A sigh.

"While I cannot say that I savor the fact of the details of the strategy that we have settled upon the failure of adherence to such a plan would end in even more unsettling alternative to restrictions which would..."

Thirteen years experience having first say among two talkative sisters cut though the remanding ramble like a knife.

"Your wrench, Admiral."

* * *

_Tomorrow was..._

Bubbles closed the door, cutting off the glow of Blossom's lamp with a soft click.

Somehow, the narrow hallway connecting the three rooms seemed even smaller under the shadow of floating slippers.

Three years.

The powerpuff stood in her own doorway for a long moment, taking in every detail.

It smelled of a comforting mix of dust and fabric softer, of the flower dotted sheets laid out in silent hope and lingering cobwebs behind old drawings.

Bubbles smiled the soft sound of her hover drifting slowly toward a shadowed figure against the far wall, using her old toybox as a pillow.

She knelt inches above the carpet, kissing the unconscious brow with a smile.

"Bubbles?..Honey..pass..bedtime..."

The whispered, spoken with a drunken slur in sleep, caught her with their comfort over the bags of her gray eyelids. She smiled.

"Yes Professor."

Turning, her palms tight against her stomach, light fabric twirled as she came to rest, flopping on the bed with a heavy sigh.

A light wind played through the closed window of the room suddenly, bringing with it a warm, patched wooden blanket from empty whispering space.

"Can I sleep with you?" The air asked.

A shower of dim pink sparkles carried the out line of an old fashion slip, long stockings, and bloomers as Bubbles smiled, pressing into the cool fabric of her pillow.

"No. Just hog the covers, okay?"

The clothing filled itself as the newly formed small red skinned body rolled the other way with its own sigh.

"Did Constantinople come home?"

A half covered claw tightened on the blanket side, already long dotted with pincher holes.

"No..and Daddy's working extra..."

Bubbles turned, reaching out. Her symptomatic touch was shrugged off with a sharp jerk, and a small body curled in a tight ball.

"They'll both come back."

"I knooow.." The demon hissed. "But he's never gone this long..._**you're never **__**gone this long**_!"

"We'll be back, just remember..."

The dramatic rip of a tiny scorpion stinger through the sheets interpreted Bubbles gentle tone.

"_**Gremlins**_? A'out them? The swear on my tail?"

"Right." Bubbles nodded as the tail began to sway in distaste. "No hospital equipment, no already running cars, and no airplanes..."

"Already in the air." The small voice sighed, falling to an even higher, younger tone. "Yes, I remem'er...But...but..Bubbles?"

"Hm?" The puff answered, fighting to keep her eyes open.

The demon rolled, twisting to pet the shiny black segments of her appendage with a claw.

"Your tail _falls off_ if you swear on it and brake it..'n I _like_ my tail... very much."

Bubbles smiled.

"It's called_ keeping a promise_."

Bright yellow eyes widened, watching in bewilderment long after the household around them fell into sleep.

* * *

The scene of chaos that met their eyes under a faintly pink tinted sky had changed little in the last five hours, it's mixture of wandering crying families and wild eyed maniacs dragging even a sigh from Buttercup.

"There goes the neighborhood."

A normally happy bluebird crossed paths with one of many fresh lava flares, falling from the sky freshly roasted.

"It all seems a bit too..convent honestly...like something meant to take us on a wild goose chase..." Blossom rubbed her chin as they picked up speed in the direction of Him's perch.

"Or get Mojo to pull the plug on us..."

"Buttercup!" Blossom snapped.

Buttercup darted a cool look to where the other puff flew at her side, writing slowly and carefully in her best handwriting in a notebook.

"Did you hear something Bubbles?"

"Please, stop fighting.._please_?" Bubbles said, her eyes worn as they flashed a silent plead to them both in turn. "He wouldn't lie about this..."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Well, it's just, Blossom, what's the issue you're working on right now?" Bubbles tore the page from her notebook at last, starting to fold it neatly. "The one that means the _most_ to you?"

"You mean finding a cure for Cancer?" Blossom asked with a smile.

"Right! The end of the world is Him's cure for Cancer!..." Bubbles smiled even bigger in return, pausing in mid-sealing of the fold page with a heart shaped sticker.

"Wait, that doesn't sound right..."

Her sisters blinked.

" That's it, you're so staying with us more often."

Buttercup's dry comment echoed though the gleeful shower of early morning paperwork and executives being thrown from business district windows.

A red blur of bottled force sped head long into the powerpuffs formation, leaving nothing but a lone shoe flying off an instantly glomped Bubbles.

By the time the high pitched cry of joy reached the hearing range of normal humans, the shoe had met its match stories below, Bubbles reappearing with rumpled pigtails and a smug looking Him.

Him picked up the white boot gingerly from the forehead of a dazed Major, polishing it with a gentle consideration.

The area around the throne lay oddly untouched in the center of an already ragged Townsville, the sizzling sound of a fresh lava flow broken only by the welcoming snort of a grazing Bob.

Groggy citizens slowly scurried out of the many shadows, drawn with a hopeful sigh by the claiming, semi-sane sight of Bubbles petting a muzzle of pale skin and bleach white bone.

" Has everyone arriiived? Is everyooone in their places with bright sunny faces?"

The sound of small boots on cranked concrete drew closer for in back of the platform with a growl, a jerk on his beard bringing Him face to pink, bag rimmed eyes with the most sleep deprived of his plan's victims.

"I will refrain from the true expression of my reply to you on this matter as such a statement is not suitable for the underage children which are present and would truly be forever scarred by my distaste for your infernal cheerfulness."

"You're welcome." Him smiled, snipping his beard free. Mojo blinked tossing the curled hair away as a replacement grew on Him's face instantly without missing a beat.

"Oooh that certain something in the air, can't you feeeel it? An end of the world but nooot _quite_ next day walk of shame."

Him breathed in the smell of ruin and brimstone deeply, his sighed breath out melting his body into a swirl of red mist, working its way into the streets below.

"Humans, animals, _things_, all living out their _**deepest unbridled desires**_ with time enough to rethiiink..."

_"What is love without a future?"_ The Mayor shivered, cuddling closer to Ms. Bellum as the smoke weaved.

_"What is fortune without things to buy and claim?"_ Sedusa froze where she happened to be cuddling a small mountain of gems in the same way, her satisfied look falling.

_"What is rulership of a dying world by any other name?"_ The mist made a half turn around the overweight collector Lenny Baxter , its mocking tone having no effect. The bohemiath rolled over, still fast asleep on a bed made out of mint in box toys.

"Just for that, I'm _keeping_ the shoes." Sedusa's tapping foot met a freshly re-formed Him where he appeared again, her arms still holding a basketball sized ruby.

"Not my _velvet, crystal heel Louboutin's_!" Him gasped in horror.

"_My_ Louboutin's," Sedusa's eyes narrowed with a heartless, cold gleam. "Hm, and now that I think of it, I do feel like walking in a few _puddles_.."

"_Imaaaa_!" Him's claw fell in a pitiful, dark sigh, slipping down to his knees in the high contrast shadow of distant beloved fashion items.

Mojo's eyebrow fell at last where he now sat with the crowd, intently watching the small drama.

The just as uncommon sight of Ace leaning against a wall, twisting a ring off his finger with a thoughtful stare, drew Mojo's own.

"Why are you not as distressed by the turn of events which may deprive you of the company of the more homicidal of the powerpuffs, that is, separate you from Buttercup in the same application as I stall be from Blossom?"

The powerpuffs' bright colors darted around yet again in a vain attempt to calm everyone, their reflection in the gang leaders' glasses adding a shaded warmth to his green skin.

"Simple, I know her."

Mojo ran a hand through the black fur of his cheek.

"Hm. You have a point. I, to, am well acquainted with Blossom's capabilities. And judging from Bubbles presumed status..."

"I know what _I_ presume..." Blossom smiled with a sharp nod, vanishing and returning in a flash of pink light.

Somehow, after a long thirteen years, the golden gleam of the Key to The World seemed faded and worn.

The symbol of unquestioned leadership of the whole world passed with a hollow clang into small chimp hands.

"You're going to take good care of the Earth, Mojo Jojo."

"Say wa?" The citizen's of Townsville turned as one from their whimpering.

The notorious villain shrunk down against the outcry of thrown trash and a few stray bullets, the magic of the key already eating away at the coloring of his cape, turning it a snowy pure white.

"Come now, everyone!" Blossom shouted, using her bullet proof body as a half hugging shield. "Remember even _Mojo Jojo made a fine ruler _for a few months before he went crazy, and all we're proposing here is a matter of _days_."

"_Go outside and play boys_." Him hissed over Blossom, a whoop going up as three shadowed figures on horseback galloped into being, cutting trough the crowd.

"Important days. Precious days." He agreed, leaning over Blossom's bow.

"Mojo, Mojo, to keep the peace, and my eldest munchkin, Ursula, _**to keep the interesting.**_" Him whipped over, drifting to one side of the short villain. "Because we all know how you haaate boring... "

"Yes, but..."

"..and simply _love_ children." He glided the other way, now wearing a sailor suit and licking an oversized, rainbow swirled lollipop.

"But- You have children? That is to say you actually reproduce in the biological fashion of male to female-"

"Oooh.. You think underlings would care, would _knooow_ you." Him returned to drifted over Mojo just out of grappling distance, sharping a pincher with a long file.

"But do they ever go to your fancy themed dinner parties? Do they even have the good taste to send a 400th birthday My Little Hippo card or twenty? I ask you Mojo, what is this world coming to? Ooh, that's right...""

"Now? Now?" An echoing voice asked.

"_Now_." Him smiled, setting the needle on a floating record player.

A cheerful ragtime tune set a backdrop to a shower of pink glitter and daisies suddenly raining from the sky. The shadowed face of a demon dipped up from a deep curtsy in the air, the diamonds studding her hair on silver tread clicking together.

" **Pleased to meet you! I'm dictator and you all have to listen to me!**"

"Oh no, it's..HER!" The crowd chorused, half of them fainting.

"Another one?" The major hiccuped in a pickle stupor, adding his freshly passed out body to the pile.

**"That is not not her name!**_**" **_Him growled, smoothing down Ursula's hair with a claw._** "And anyone who dares call**_**-"**

"You are so not dictator!" Mojo's answering growl thundered as he grabbed one of the small, dangling hoofs, pulling the girl down to eye level. "If anyone is dictating it shall be- huh?"

The unmistakable sound of a small demon dropping with a yelp exactly two feet to a very unforgiving ground echoed.

"Ooooow! Daddy, what's this?"

"_It's called gravity, sweetness._"

Ursula stood up with a hop, still rubbing her bottom with a frown.

"Well, I don't like it! Make it go away?"

"Now, now, must give the **little ants** a fighting chance." Him circled his daughter tightly, ironing her rumpled dress with a steaming claw, and applying pink and white glitter eyeshadow to her face with the other. " It makes the _**crushing all the more tormenting**_."

Him smiled at Mojo's return to silent moping and a now slightly twitching eye.

" Underworld children of my line have been known to be a tad...spirited. _**And she is in such a lovely mood**_..."

Him smiled at the living tangle now interwoven around his tall boot with all four limbs and an added swaying tail.

"I want it nooow! Gimme gimme! You _promised_ birthday gift, Constantinople lost, birthday , _s'il vous plaît, Papa_?"

With a smile and waving claw a high thankful squeal met a sudden balloon of black fabric over her face.

"Wow. And I thought that I was cheap with gifts. You gave her...a...sack?"

Mojo commented as the little devil popped out of sight, yelling something in an unknown language all the while.

"_Him has children?_" Blossom whispered, coming down to land at last.

"And he didn't tell us. _Big surprise there._" Buttercup replied, shaking off a thick layer of dust and goo with a small whirlwind.

"Where _is_ Bubbles?" Blossom asked with a wrinkled brow.

"Rallying the troops." Him said simply, pointing with a freshly sharpened claw to the right.

The two powerpuff's darted up in concern, their eyes met with an odd scene:

* * *

Even for Townsville, the line upon line of small shapes arranged in colonial formation, fluffy tails held high, brought an otherworldly feeling. Supervision still alight, Blossom and Buttercup turned to each other with blank stares.

Squirrels.

Hundreds of squirrels!

Bubbles made the pacing motion of walking in the air where she flew at the armies head, seeming to have grown accustom to added baby weight.

"Ceep! Ceep ceepcheep ceepeepceep! Ceep, ceepceep! Ceepceep! Ceep!"

Her dark gleam under a large netted army helmet was met with a sea of chattering and raised paws.

"Ceep, ceep?" A single voice asked.

Bubbles crossed her arms, hovering down to the ground in a cloud of dust.

"Ceepceep?" Bubbles replied, reaching out.

A tiny squirrel with huge, shining pink eyes stepped forward with a clip of its clawed feet.

"Ceepceepceep..ceep?" It asked as Bubbles petted it and just as quickly froze.

"Ceep." Bubbles answered, pointing. The squirrel scaled her arm, perching on her smooth palm.

In the distance Ursula flashed it a wide, pointed tooth smile.

The squirrel made a pitch perfect impression of a human scream, running down Bubbles and into the shadows of the surrounding trees.

When no others followed Bubbles ceeped again, the wholehearted chorus dying.

She gave a last salute as the crowd dispersed.

Her sisters blinked.

"The Earth is in good paws." Bubbles said with a smug smile, her streak barley faded where she arrived beside them.

_"Smile and wave, smile and wave, bow, __**yeees**__..."_

Him whispered as the sheepish girls did just that, bowing to the hopeful cheer of the crowd as the sound proof forcefield slipped down once again over the throne area, Mojo barely tumbling in just time with a rolling dive.

" Curtain and drums! Come warrior for humanity, this magical mystery tour _**is dying to take you away**_..."

"Are you all quite finished?" The grumble met with four steady nods, and one little figure in silhouette, gleefully throwing itself against the exposed electric wires over and over again.

"Behold!" Mojo declared with a flurry of falling bedsheet.

Within the clear pods cinnamon sticks and stuffed animals bobbed, the glow of radiated chemical X swifted from black to pink like a steady heartbeat.

"Technology unsurpassed! Ideas not yet perfected by anyone else and therefore proving me to be the superior mind of...!"

Him filed another claw in boredom as the liquid bubbled with a sinister foreboding under two sets of watchful eyes.

Bubbles slid to the side in the background, slipping something under the rim of Mojo's turban.

The height of Mojo's filibuster was cut short with a fresh piece of magical mouth covering rope, a giggle from a hole of darkness marking their savor.

"So, what is this battle you wanted me for Him?" Blossom yelled with an accusatory jab in the direction of the demon, still lounging across his throne like he had all the time in the world. "So badly you would strike unnecessary fear into the hearts of innocents?"

Him smiled, wiping lips across a claw and revealing natural skin of the same black shade as his everyday lipstick.

"Innocent? Whoever is innocent?" Him floated over to where the last puff now stood in front her sisters, rubbing her arm with a palm. "_**Do you know of it, dear heart?**_"

"_I don't think I …Lafaye-"_

Bubbles words fell, lost at the edge of a passionate kiss.

"You dirty-!" Buttercup yelled, her punching arm held barely in check by a just as upset looking Blossom.

"_**Loose yourself to glory**_..." Him pulled away, suddenly biting Bubbles bottom lip with a jerk downward, painting both their chins crimson.

"They won't..._**I won't let..For you...I**_..." Bubbles whisper broke with a sob at wavering volume, closing her eyes as the air in the soundproof dome grew heavy.

Within the confines of the force field existence rippled like television static under a black light, drawing even a stony faced Buttercup near, clasping Blossom's palm.

With each flash, every bone from a large oval shaped skull to the unborn child within Bubbles glowed to the naked eye, jaws rising and falling to the melody of eerie sing song.

_**"Now I lay me down to sleep, to a land both dark and deep. To the earth my soul in wonder, May no power throw asunder."**_

The last downbeat echoed as she bent, time itself slowed to a heartbeat, kissing Blossom, and then Buttercup upon the forehead.

A light mist of pink and green fed into Bubbles mouth as she breathed out at last, time itself speeding up again.

Like drifting leaves the two heroes fell, their eyes colorless and blank.

"But..." Mojo sputtered as Him lifted the two young bodies, slipping them into their pods as if their glass containers were only made of water.

"_Sounds like someone's an unlucky in love grumpy gus._ _Am I taking something __**or are you just not hanging on hard enough**_?"

Mojo's green hand, cut raw pink with rope burns, winched away from the air around the translucent pink liquid of a pod , its volume pulsing Blossom's long red hair gently.

Turning, the wilted looking chimp was met with a desolate wind.

Him, the forcefield, and Bubbles were all simply... gone.

The chaos of an even more disheartened Townsville played like a crying hum, still looting and burning despite their sorrows.

In the background, an all but forgotten small claw waved, the wind catching the rim of her green gingham dress and the fabric of the empty black bag as she hopped up, waving goodbye from the tip of a lamppost on a single bare hoof.

"I'll take good care of Earth, **very good care...**" A wide, bright yellow eye caught Mojo's gaze, married with a tiny smile. "Monkey can you play the barrel origin?"

"What are you implying of chimpanzees little-?" Mojo spat, cut short by the girl's small body landing from high above full force on his stomach, a tail stinger striking at the ground near his ear.

"That's okay, _I'll teach you very very well.._."

"What is this?" Mojo growled, standing up to retrieve his toppled helmet, something within it catching his eye.

The pink paper fluttered against his hand, decorative cursive lettering upon it dancing:

* * *

_Dear Mojo, Don't worry, everything will be fine! _

_Love, Bubbles_

_ P.S. Just remember, it's all in the bag._

* * *

In a clearing empty to every moral eye a bright pink chopper motorcycle revved and rumbled in anticipation.

The view of Bubbles already sitting snugly in front of Him met Blossom and Buttercup's first resurfacing thoughts , mixed with a sharp, stabbing pain.

Somehow, idea of still having pain on this side of being startled Blossom more than the sight of devil astride a overdecorated vehicle, complete with telling stitched rose detailing.

"Souls can't fly, _**funny**_ twist, isn't it?"

Him smiled as Buttercup ran over, hopping into the side car without hesitation.

But don't worry, at my side, _**you've got a ticket to ride**_."

Another rev mirrored Him's wider smile, a claw petting the pink fur trim of the seat just behind brand new too tight red leather pants.

"Over my dead-!"

Blossom's eyes widened in silent realization, slowly bowing her head as she begain a solemn walk forward, her figure casing not a shadow...


	8. Patience

_**Patience.**_

* * *

The world was a dizzy array of color forced through traces of sunlight at hundreds of miles per hour.

When voices were heard for the first time in two mortal days they were just as energetic.

"Faster, faster!"

"Slower, sloweeer! Watch out for that tree!"

"Wheeee!"

Him snorted rolling his eyes to the pink-eyed backseat driver who happened to be digging her palms into his freshly oiled upholstery.

"Oh for vileness sake child, just gooo with it already. Sit back, relax, have a slushy."

Blossom blinked as a domed cup appeared in Him's claw, Buttercup now crowned with a 'I love New York' basketball cap.

"A 7-11 _here_?" Buttercup asked as Bubbles loudly 'yoinked' the hovering beverage cup, happily beginning to slurp on its straw.

"Is there nothing that can't be solved by bits of fried dough and a gallon of corn syrup?"

Blossom did her best to turn away, something that amounted to only a half head turn.

"You lied to me."

"Doesn't feel very good, does it?" Buttercup huffed, looking up from where she had found a newly discovered disposable camera.

"I lied? Whichever lie do you mean?" Him asked, flicking and over-dramatic claw against his forehead and smiling a split second later at the flash of Buttercup's camera.

"I'm sooo disorganized lately, I really should update my filing system the oxen and one hundred virgins-"

Bubbles shot Him a heated look.

"I mean, one hundred adopted bunnies, are _**getting so lazy**_."

Bubbles nodded, returning to her loud wild cherry flavored slurping.

"You said I would battle you for the fate of the world," Blossom continued. "...but this place drains us of our power-"

"There will be no battle." Him shrugged. "I lied to the pickle crunching masses, not to you."

"You know, he's right." Buttercup chimed in.

"Would you stop agreeing with him?"

"Make me!"

"But if we're not going to battle you..." Blossom began over her growling attempts at reaching toward Buttercup's sidecar seat.

"The why the fuss, the rush, the hullabaloo? Why, I've already told you what is true: To save the world."

Buttercup looked up from dutifully poking Blossom in the arm.

"But, hold on, the world 'ends' or whatever when Bubbles' baby is..."

"_Our_ baby." Him corrected giving Bubbles a warm half hug as he drove with a claw and a boot.

"_Bubbles_' baby is born.." Buttercup snapped back. "So..don't you _want_ that?"

"That's the thing about something promised to you for ages and ages: sometimes the anticipation, isn't that the fun part? So near... well dear, getting everything in the world handed to you gift wrapped is about as boring as Mojo's annual villains' luncheon. _Honestly,__** who hates onion dip?**_'

Blossom butted in at that moment, her voice set at a particularly annoyed too loud whisper that made Him turn, ear twitching.

"Isn't it obvious Buttercup? If the earth dies there might not even be enough Heck left for even a baby demon to live...in."

The shadows from the surrounding ghosts of the world's landscapes and buildings creeping silently this whole time, now stood at each side of their route like a mass of tin solders.

Their glowing red eyes, though they belonged to strangers, brought back flashes of the powerpuffs friends and family long ago, their emotions seeped in a spell of hate.

"What are you doing to them, Him? " Blossom punched the demons' side, arm and jaw, her new blows not even enough to make Him flinch. "Stop that now! Isn't getting us enough?"

One claw, dangerously taken off the safety of the chopper's handlebars, was already dotting the massive line in a silent mouthed count.

"Oh, you two are more than enough and a certain 3nd make my cup runth over it's true. But there is a far more world worn truth here: In that I've done nothing dear, but brought about the counting of those that have, in life, given themselves to me, signed and paid for, quite legally. It's a nasty habit I know, but we must be extra especially sure for that 'just in case'..."

Blossom continued attacking, finally letting her fist fall under half closed pink eyes, its palm shaking with rage.

Bubbles turned forward again in front of Him without a word, crunching leftover ice between her teeth.

"Forty-five thousand, times zero, divided by the triangle root of four, carry the one..Let's just say someone owes me the claw's worth of five dollars times a few **thousand years interest in 'I told you so's. **"

As the souls faded in lines of smoke into the living world, the engine of the motorcycle sputtered, making Him do a sharp swerving circle in surprise, scenting the air with brunt rubber.

Blossom and Buttercup yelped, Bubbles leaning into the sudden curve with a practiced claim.

The mist around the washed out grey road parted with the ring of a spur edged whinny, a horse head with nostrils flared bowed forward before its rider.

The white shire beneath the suit of armor that now adorned the silent embodiment of pestilence, perched over gigantic saddle bags, reared to a stop, sides heaving under moth-eaten fencing trappings.

Blossom's breath shook ever so slightly as its gigantic eye took in its new neighbors behind a torn wine colored mask.

"Haaank, you loyal man servant you, finally deciding to be useful, **how very punctual**."

Golden eyes blazed with determination, Hank's own eyeless skull driving forward, his collection of bones below half empty riding gear taking on a jockey's position over it's rotting flesh.

"Now, now, oooh isn't this cute? This again..."

Him sighed, turning the steadying the chopper back into a normal break neck pace.

"Really, everyone knows mine is longer." He laughed, in the same breath twisting the gas even harder.

The two leaped into a race, their shapes bleeding passing color on the ghost of the world of the living.

Bike, horse, and all sped up from the ground, leaving Blossom with barely enough time to catch her own scream in her inner ears.

The new sensation of having a sense of balance promising death after death, ruled over by some mysterious force drawing her back to earth for the first time in her life, added to the screams raw edge.

Grassy country rose and fell, replaced by desert spans and then new pavement, poured under the spinning wheels like a black mirror, wet and polished by unseen street lamps...

"Where are we going?" Buttercup asked.

"Wyoming!" Bubbles said, her voice stranded around breathless energy.

"What?" Buttercup yelled over the thundering engine and answering horse whinny.

"Wyoming!" Bubbles yelled again in the direction of the sidecar.

"What's in Wyoming?"

Bubbles laughed.

"Right! Isn't it the perfect hiding place?"

Blossom cupped her palm around her mouth, taking the opportunity from a patch of smooth roadway to rub the imaginary dirt collected from having to be in actual physical contact with Him onto her dress.

"Hiding place for what?"

"Why, that little ones! Behold!" Him yelled with a sweeping claw, bringing the motorcycle skidding along the highway's textured rumble strip.

Blossom gasped, doing a full face plant into the back of Him's fur collar as Buttercup ducked down in a flash.

"Ooooh dear, Hank you silly goooose, that isn't even worthy of staaanding beside the build up of a good 'behold!'. **If only you weren't so very clumsy**..I win again!"

Him smiled, the large protective claw now between Bubbles stomach and the steel handlebars shrinking back to normal.

"And wouldn't you know it? Just when we were starting to have fuuun...We've here!"

"Here? What's so great about here? There's nothing..but..." Buttercup begin.

"Stairs?" Blossom finished with a gapping mouth.

"So that's what they look like..." Bubbles whispered to no one, her eyes growing wide.

The stairs were all by themselves nothing remarkable upon first the look.

The 2nd and 3rd look, which drew the eye ever upward, was nothing short of a wordless wonder.

Each step, arranged one after another as if connected by invisible threads of air, was glass, drinking up every trace of color that chanced to dance in from the living world.

Every step held a passing rue on and off, returning to transparent purity where clouds darted through sunlight.

A collection of ivory-white bones lay before the stairway, sprayed in a tell tale trail scattered from the limping charger, freshly tripped.

The bones shook as Him floated over the area, bugs and rats crawling from the ground itself to reassemble the creatures' framework.

Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup slipped down from the bike to the ground without a sound.

By the time their much slower walking caught up with demon and horseman, he had reconnected himself, craning his neck to look at his master with an eyeless motion that looked strangely like a human glare.

"Well, on with it then, slaaave! Chop, chop! Provide your usefulness, _**if you still even remember how**_." Him stood, stretching his arms out as if waiting for something from the horseman behind him.

When the giants' own arms remained crossed Him's face fell.

"Ooo, aren't we fresh and full of ourself suddenly?" He growled, starting to undress himself as if it was an unnatural burden. "I'm afraid I don't provide those types of fringe benefits.._"_

His undressing slowed every so slightly, three articles of clothing away from a world of underwear Blossom, where she stood frozen, was already silently wiping from her mind.

_"Unless my public so demands it_..."

"Ew." Buttercup offered.

Bubbles blushing worldlessly added a deeper shade.

"So be it, you shall for this time and this time only be witness to my full unrestrained wonder of wonders."

Him's black lips curled as he gracefully shook off a white undershirt like a cloak, the fabric falling in a shower of supernatural snow.

"I thought that was what we said no to the first time." Buttercup said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. "Besides...Evil isn't suppose to sparkle."

"Of cooourse evil can sparkle! But true evil, now _that_ sparkles with style!"

Him turned, the white glitter shown off every inch of his bare red skin, making it a glossy warm crimson against black satin lips.

Lips that spoke a whisper.

_"Tell me, tell meee... and looove me truuue, do I dazzle you?"_

The planting of his beetle black scorpion tail rattled, growing to the company of the ripping of bone and muscle tearing flesh.

Him's lobster claws, once almost hand like and decorative, grew rough, blossoming outward, two sets of interconnected pincers clawing their edges into the soft earth.

Black hair grew in waves, dotted white with the magical energy like falling snow. In a flash the mane joined together below a much longer beard, ragged and uncurled, bellowing under a still human face.

The large muscular body of a full-grown red lion, twice as wide and as long as its natural cousins, shook one hind leg and then the other in the mountain grass, it's scorpion tail twitching.

Hank ran over, lightening quick for such a large frame, taking something from the overburdened saddlebag and skillfully tending to the monsters back paws and clawed foretalons in turn.

When the horseman bowed away at last the creature flexed, fully fitted with what looked like footed gauntlets of ruby armor encrusted with golden lettering.

"**Oh the look on your faces! Priceless...**" Him's head dipped down at last regaining the ability to speak. The remains of a trademark pink fur collar tore on the ground with sweep of the manticores' jaw and a laugh.

" **Did you **_**really**_** think my true form would be that boring storybook creature a little bird said you dreamed of**? "

Him smiled, all pretense of his higher register lost somewhere between his still everyday face and not so everyday mishmash of an animal body.

"**Were anyone to be called predictable...Come, we climb! **_**Love, keep my side.**_"

"Okay!" Bubbles agreed, her palm already against the side that made her look no bigger than her once five year old self.

_"Does he always talk like this?"_ Blossom whispered, her shock replaced with a raised eyebrow.

"A _lion_?" Buttercup spoke for the first time, her eyelid twitching.

_"Only when he's serious."_ Bubbles said, grinning as if that excused everything.

"_A lion_?" Buttercup twitched, her eyes falling in a steady path to Bubbles protruding stomach.

_"Him can be serious?_" Blossom sneered.

_"You and a...?"_ Buttercup finished at last looking Bubbles in the eyes. Her sister smiled, giving her shoulder a reassuring pat.

Him smiled, revealing hundreds of interlocking silver teeth.

" **Little fighter, you may guard my back."**

The black blur that was Him's tail struck, catching Buttercup by the collar and cartwheeling her over the expanse of his body.

**"My **_**far**_** back. Where there is to be no **_**kicking**_**.**"

"Hmph! I'm not afraid." Buttercup said, tightening her grip on the tail, the stinger inches away from her face as she started to walk.

"**I know**_**.**_" Him growled, shooting a glance at Blossom, his voice falling to a flat tone.

"**You. Walk ahead.** "

Blossom began to climb the growing certainty that they were getting farther away from a world in desperate need, and a very unhappy monkey, fading with each spinning look between the gaps of a glass staircase.

_Hang on Mojo..._


	9. Abstinence

_**Abstinence**_.

* * *

Under the brilliant gold trim large pink eyes glared.

It was not so much the indignity of the fez or its accompanying red vest, or even the barrel organ.

No, any one of the citizens now well in hiding could tell that Mojo Jojo was a villain that had been through much worst.

It was in fact, the echoing cheerful one hundredth and fifth revision of 'Frère Jacques' that sent the offending instrument sailing through the air.

His demon overseer gasped, the tossed combination of wood and metal catching her full in the stomach and sending her falling to earth.

"Enough!" Mojo screeched, pointing toward the fresh pile of rubble. "I am not some plaything to be played with in such a fashion, I am Mojo Jojo! While it is true that all living things should not be things with which to play, such as puppies and kitties, it is especially so that I, Mojo Jojo would even in your fathers absence, be worthy of such respect as you would give something that was not a toy but rather, an adult to whom you should as a little girl pay due..."

Ursula reappeared, pinching flesh around a large cut in her side. The cut melted together, changing to a scab and then new skin in a moment's time.

"Oooow! You talk too much monkey! You've been bad! And bad things happen to bad monkeys!" Already red skin flushed at her cheeks, dripping with sweat. "Just like bad things will be happening to these bad humans because of you! I'm sure they want to say thank you before your spanking!"

Mojo knew the look of bottled rage well, but was far passed caring. Somehow, the key to the world felt warm against his fur, well hidden. And his. His!

"Chimpanzee! Have I not said before a dozen times that my scientific classification is not...Wait, spanking?"

The little beings eyes glowed, whipping the large empty sack around to face the crowd.

Her slim build , reflecting Him's in perfect miniature under the green and white checkered sundress, moved even faster than Mojo remembered his former band member ever floating.

Maybe it was youth? Yes, it had to be! Youth...and maybe with it, inexperience...

Somehow, the idea that Him might have been holding back all these years made a secret patch of hair on his back bristle.

"Daddy did say over and over how much you love shiny things, and nothing is shinier than my..." Ursula smiled, all traces of her babyish tone nearly gone. "Ooh, where'd they get to now? I had them just last war!"

The black fabric billowed outward, tacked to sky with invisible pins, bending to accommodate half her swallowed body as clear clicking and muffled roars met her rummaging.

Mojo turned to the sharp 'click' of high heels on fresh hardened lava noticing only half of those roars came from the odd bag.

A small but angry looking crowd, adored with pitchforks and one flaming banjo rumbled behind Sedusa's torn fishnet stockings.

"If there's anything left of you for her to play with after..." Sedusa said, lifting the chimp's chin up to eye level. She stopped at the blank look of bewilderment. "You have no idea what you just did do you?"

Mojo grinned under wide pink eyes and wiggled free, dropping with a short screech . Only his perching finger waved at the much taller mob's eye level.

"I merely have happened to stand up for my rights to be treated in such a way as would digitif..."

Sedusa sighed, shooing her small army away with a glance.

"You do talk too much. No wonder the thinking part of that huge head of your's doesn't get anything done. They sleep for ten years at a time just saving up energy for buffoons like you..."

"They?" Mojo asked, already knee-deep in a collection of remote controls he was producing from his turban.

"Demons. Selected ones. Ones with specialized talents like..."

"My best work, _**my gremlin dollies**_!" Ursula proclaimed with a proud grin, sticking out her chest.

"_Machinery_."

A sound like the notes of an out of tune violin played with the knitting needles cut the argument short.

With a roar of untied laughter, a wave of little shadows burst from the once empty sack, climbing over their mistress in their race toward freedom.

The remaining citizens parted back to their safe shadows...all but two.

The gremlins' skin, a glossy black like oil, was tight over compact sparking wires, their lines twisted in an illusion of muscle mass.

They cartwheeled and flipped over long parked and ruined cars, tiny ball bearings at the end of cable tails denting hoods even farther.

Each the size of a chihuahua, they poured past Sedusa and Mojo's feet, the later taking no notice of the flood of folded rabbit like ears and sets of glinting teeth.

"I am not just some stupid baboon, little girl! I am strong, I am right!"

Mojo grinned, a line of drool catching the light as a moment later the impressive chrome plated Robo Gogo, in the shape of a giant swatting orangutan, dropped from the sky.

"I am able to create a lasting peace that is lasting! I am-!"

Sedusa scuffled where she stood, rubbing her temples. "You are a sad sad little man..."

Ursula blinked, the crowd of gremlins grabbing as one for the chimp now somehow wearing a fresh white cape, catching only air as he leaped up into a pilot's seat among the silver crown of solar panels it wore.

"MOJO JOJO!"

* * *

**The City of Wyoming! No, that's not quite right…The State of Wyoming! Above it that is, where the Powerpuff Girls, now more puff and powerless, travel onward and upward in a place beyond death!**

The wisps of fog tracing mountaintops carried across clear blue sky to the sound of paws and footsteps upon glass.

Bubbles looked up and directly out to a point unseen, her eyes lighting with the hope of something familiar.

_"Mr. Narrator, is that you?"_

**With two days remaining and the fate of the Earth lying with our girls and the clawed paws of that gruesome, repulsive, inhuman…**

"Weee! This is great!" Buttercup's voice echoed, drowning out Bubbles' second whisper and Him's accompanying growl toward the spot.

Somewhere, the unknown space made no reply, the sound of a squeaking office chair fading.

Halfway through her fifth cartwheel beside the stairway Buttercup paused and flopped on her stomach. Kicking her feet against the cotton-like texture she offered the slower entourage below a toothy grin.

"Just like the clouds back home! Who needs ol' flying anyhow?"

"I..I would like it back soon," Bubbles said, her voice dipping softly. "It always feels a bit safer, flying."

Him turned to lick her cheek, his brow wrinkled under a black mane. The burden of the puffs quickly advancing pregnancy continued on even here, leaning her heavily against the wide lion's side.

_**'Rest assured, dear, t'was not my idea to build an infernal stair, high above from here to there. I much prefer the wholesome ground, where all my favorite things are found..."**_

Him grinned with something that in the animal kingdom might have been a gentlemanly nod but with a human face came off as silent sarcasm aimed toward Blossom.

When Bubbles didn't object he knelt, in a split second helping her onto his back, his long tail acting as a step stool.

"Is he going to keep talking like that the whole way to this, this ,wherever it is we're going?" Buttercup hopped up two clouds ahead of the group.

Despite Blossom's place at the front of the line the two teens were holding up an impressive record of successively avoiding one another's gaze.

Him on the other hand was now holding up his own record of a passionate dedicated stare among both the green-eyed puff and his wife, an unsettling thing that darted to and throw with gold-rimmed amusement.

"It's just his natural voice Buttercup, telling Ly..Him not to rhyme is like telling you not to swear.." Bubbles rubbed behind Him's now giant ear, gripping a handful of the black mane running along his back.

The glass steps now grew wining and steeper still, making powerpuff, and scorpion tailed lion alike, take small leaps to climb upward.

"Hey! I don't swear that much!" Buttercup slowed.

Blossom rolled her eyes.

"..at hockey games." Bubbles finished.

"Oh. Well, okay, if he has to...You know, you might as well tell us his name already. If we're stuck together, I mean."

Buttercup whistled lightly as if she had just asked the time or if they were having meatloaf for diner, kicking off one mary jane and then the other.

"But..." Bubbles watched the two tiny dots drop, already hundreds of feet below.

Blossom stopped completely for the first time in hours, turning toward Him. For the first time in their long journey her eyes ran over his true form from pointed nose to tail.

_**"Oh you make such a face wife, fine let us end this strife. For here on my name knows no pull, **_even to the likes of yooou._**"**_

Him drummed his front claws against the steps, a movement that with his ruby planted gauntlets made the glass echo like a wind chime.

_**"If the raven haired must know, it is Lafayette."**_ His voice purred, dipped in spiced honey. _**" She can say it often. Slooowly I hope dearly sooo..."**_

To Blossom's surprise Buttercup froze to the spot, and Bubbles shivered, burying her face in the black mane.

Slowly, timidly, never breaking her stare, Buttercup hopped down from a cloud above, landing with effortless perfect form.

Her palm drew nearer and nearer to the demon 's cheek, his breath quickening.

"Lafayette? Isn't that a woman's-?" Blossom interjected.

Buttercup suddenly blinked, pulling her palm away with a startled gasp.

Mumbling something about Him being a better name after all, she turned sharply, cheeks flushed.

_**"Only Buttercup and my dear, not you, gnat!"**_ Him howled, sending Blossom's hair streaming.

"Of course! It's all so clear!" Blossom began, her face suddenly bright and unfazed.

"And here it comes..." Buttercup rolled her eyes again, still looking her palm over as though it was contaminated.

"It's obvious, the riddles, the fur, the constant face, a manticore!" Blossom continued, hopping from place to place.

_**"Aren't we sooo clever,**__ hmm_?" Him growled. Two sets of needle width teeth cinched under black gums barely hissing words.

"And the makeup, the mannerisms, why fifteen minutes time says it all, half lion... A female dominated society!"

Blossom laughed openly, now sitting behind Bubbles on his back.

Her sister shook her head with a wild jerk, eyes wide, but her hand wasn't as quick to block words. Blossom was on a roll.

"_**You dare psychoanalyze me? You honestly think you..**_"

"Femininity as a sign of power! Why, I'd even go so far as to say it has trademark signs of mother-"

With one whip a roar thundered laced with screams.

Blossom, eyes wide and mouth finally closed hung from Him's semi-human jaw by the back of her dress.

Buttercup froze halfway through a punch to lion's side.

Bubbles swallowed a sob.

_**"One more word. Just one."**_ Him hissed again, under a wrinkled nose. Yellow eyes glinted to slits.

_**"So you know all, do you?"**_

The sound off ripping fabric drew a glossy shine to Buttercup's eyes.

_**" Do you know, do you wonder, do you pounder, do powerpuff souls..bounce?"**_

A second rip. Blossom, buffeted by the high winds, clinched her eyes shut against the endless drop.

_**"**_NO! DON'T!" Bubbles screamed , her voice a hollow howl.

Him growled and roared at the sound , the small frame diving over his head, grabbing Blossom's legs.

"_Nonononono..._" Bubbles chant hummed.

The roar had barely died as the manticore's black tail, running securely through the back of the blue puffs' dress, pulled the two upward gently.

Blossom still shook with shock as Buttercup let out a breath, returning to her punching.

Him's mouth grew wider and wider before Bubbles, his tongue drawn back in a hungry half curling growl.

Even at nearly twenty years old and five feet two (the tallest of them all) Blossom had no doubt the man-eater could easily swallow her, unborn child and all, then and there.

Without chewing.

Bubbles smiled.

" ..Why?"

Him's ear twitched, the slow clicks of his jaw relocating making the still shocked Blossom flinch.

_**" Why? Why how?"**_

"Why don't you ask?"

_**"A riddle?"**_

Bubbles' voice was the sing song of talking to something between a kitten and a small child.

_"Don't riddles make Lyfee happy?"_

The group began climbing again, Him hopping with excitement and sticking his tail up like a playful dog.

_**"Yes..Oo, they do so...Why is a raven like a writing desk?"**_

"_Black."_ Bubbles yawned, pulling herself again onto his back, her whisper muffled. _"They both grow a glossy black that dims..One with ink, the other with time."_

Him's voice rumbled, drawing into song.

_**"When humanity grew tired of using rhyme to puzzle reason they wrote of song singing in souls…**_"

"How silly." Blossom added flatly.

"_**Silly is as silly was."**_ The manticore's eyes were distant and as serious as Blossom had ever seen them.

Suddenly, with a single step forward, Blossom ran headlong into a wall of solid pain.

The world after death bled light, sending her spinning. Loops of smaller and smaller sunlight danced...


	10. Kindness

_**Kindness.**_

* * *

The overturned head of a gutted robot was never a good place for a tea party.

It was lucky, then, that what marked the end of the world was closer to never, and with the disappearance of the Powerpuff Girls and Him's unborn heir to doom, that 'never' looked to be getting nearer with every passing minute.

Ruined buildings had long since given up what inner safety their burning mountains of glass and plaster once offered, ending in the loudest whispered war cry of 'pickles' in human history, and a mob of most of the Townsville citizenship, led by the Mayor, running to the relative safety of a cucumber field in nearby Farmsville four hours ago.

"Why do I even bother? All you boys ever see me as is a pretty face with all the right attachments. It's not like I would have anything valuable to say you'd ever be interested in. Fine, go ahead, get yourself and everyone here killed."

Sedusa sipped her tea loudly from a half-broken cup as a new bombardment of explosive chemical fall out baked the already long cratered earth.

The commotion ended for a breath, dotted by the loud screeches of something very like a monkey who had long since given up words for unbridled rage.

A white cat, it's long Persian fur smoldering on one cheek , padded into the relative safety of dented metal and live wires, sitting down across for the villainess.

"One please." It said in a cultured accent.

The smoking trail of black fur and bruised ego sailing across the sky just then couldn't help but spy the almost too happy sight of White Cat, tucking himself into a ball and licking drops of tea from a saucer perched on Sedusa's lap.

"That is it! Yes, that is the very last straw! That is not to say that previously I did not have ownership of numerous straws as straws are of the cheap variety and thus, made of materials such as plastic.

But to say, as straws are symbolic of that which mentally I..."

Mojo limped sadly into view, two of the demonic gremlins chewing on the torn remains of his blowing white cape.

"White isn't really your color, is it monkey?" Ursula remarked, drifting by with a yawn as the half-baked survivors of a gutted pet shop caught her eye.

Mojo stole the opportunity to creep away as bright green beams poured from the black sack the girl carried, the waves of power sending her green dress fluttering.

Row upon row of once peacefully terrified rabbits, birds, and fluffy animals of unmeasurable cuteness suddenly grew pointed teeth and red glowing eyes.

"Perhaps I was a bit hasty in the saying of the shouting which I impolitely subjected you to."

Mojo yelped as a small herd of demonic hamsters streamed by, grabbing his ankles in a flash of fuzzy blood lust.

"Go on." Sedusa hummed, sticking up her nose and giving the White Cat a gentle petting where he had now settled on her lap.

Mojo growled digging his fingers and the side of his open mouth into the blistering earth where he came into view again, barely holding out against the tiny balls of fur working together to chew at his torso.

"It is said in hard times," He kicked a foot, only to be met with a fresh screech as one ran down his boot.

"...times in which difficulties may be difficult to overcome,"

Mojo growled in surprise as what looked like a cockatiel with ruby clouded eyes landed on his one steady hand, talons sharp and purposeful.

"-that the enemy of the enemy one wishes to..."

Mojo screeched, a loud ring and smoke cloud sending the deadly animals scurrying to the wind.

Sedusa slid a silver trimmed pistol back into her grader belt along with the trace of a smile.

"I could try to help. I like living well enough."

_"I love goldfishes 'cause they're so delicious!"_ Ursula hummed, two extra sets of teeth sliding into place where she sat in the air,holding a live baby koi other her mouth and sliding the large aquarium full of it's fellows into her bottomless bag like it was a feather.

"Could your powers perhaps?" Mojo gestured with a glance, brushing hamster fuzz from his already ruined uniform.

Sedusa picked a bit of fuzz from his turban, her fingers brushing against a patch of the chimp's exposed brain.

"My powers do have a natural charm, but I'm not about to use them on children..."

Mojo gulped, the sound of the small demon, swallowing a whole fish alive ending in an unmistakable sizzling somewhere he was trying very hard not to envision.

"But she is..."

Sedusa sighed, getting out a brush for unseen folds of her dress and passing it off to her waves of hair where it began to travel from piece to piece, busily brushing itself.

"You're actually asking the wrong evil,as unbelievable as that may sound. I know my reputation, I'm no fool. Besides, even if she was older, I've tried it on teenage demons before. Apparently, the effect makes me look like a thirty year old virgin science fair champ that plays online games in their parent's basement."

Mojo's face drew into a forced fanged grin, his wandering hand slapped with a quick smack, away from an intimate part of the snow pale leg right at his much shorter eye level.

"But surely they can still love your personality? I still can not understand how you may remain so at ease when-"

Sedusa took out her small pistol again, shining it with a ripped piece of a passing apocalypse horseman's cloak.

The horse reared and snorted, its rider, a suit of iron armor (adorned with a sticker which read in cheerful font: HELLO MY NAME IS...Karl) with the shadow of a form inside, only pausing to reduce the last tree in Townsville park to toothpicks.

"Are you really that scared of what she is?"

"Of course! She is the daughter of the great sir of Sirs, that is capable of much-!"

Mojo screeched ducking behind Sedusa as the onslaught of squirrel-y refugees the tree produced poured past in a flash of his newly acquired post traumatic stress disorder.

_"-And I am not entirely certain she does not intend to ingest my person painfully."_ Mojo ended in a tiny mummer.

Sedusa sighed, catching Mojo by the last of his cape and dropping him just as quickly.

"What does a _little girl_ fear most? I would think you of all creatures would know that best..."

A trailing squirrel with giant yellow eyes paused for a moment, sniffing the air in the direction of the demon above, and raced to catch up with the rest, nearly getting stepped on by Sedusa's incoming heel.

"I think what we need here is a nice little talk..."

"Oil spill? No. Meat eating zombie cows? Too overdone! Hmm..." A sharp kick against the side of the bag that looked as if it had once belonged to a gothic version of Santa Claus produced only a puff of rebellious black smoke.

The demon child paused rubbing a claw over her pearl weaved black hair and giving the bag a second kick. The once black smoke sputtered, taking on an eerie green glow. She nodded in satisfaction diving halfway into its folds again.

"Hello Ursula."

A yellow eye looked over the bag edge with a bored glaze.

"Hm? Oh it's you."

Sedusa sifted her weight on still spotless shoes, matter of factly reaching into a small handbag.

"Ursula honey, what would it take for us to put this whole business behind us?"

The tell-tale click of diamonds on a silver chain made the ends of pointed red ears twitch ever so slightly where they could still be seen.

"Nothing, I don't need anything! Especially from you! I'm having fun!"

Ursula growled as what looked like a green-skinned cow with vampire fangs bobbed partway out of her bag of tricks, only to dissolve into the same dusty smoke.

"But surely your _daddy_ wouldn't like it if-"

The ends of Sedusa's hair climbed upward, creeping noticed in the direction of a hanging bare hoof.

"What would you know about what Daddy wants? You know nothing! I won't fraternize with you, **I won't! You're not my mama!**"

The hair paused waving back toward other pieces, looking as puzzled as its owner at the sudden mood swing.

"I never said I was-"

The sound of a small neck turning competently before the rest of her body followed accompanied bright gold eyes.

_**"In fact, you're no girl's mother, are you?"**_

Black hair wilted back towards earth as the demon dropped slowly from the sky, weaving her voice between the much more mature tone of a full grown woman and back to its tiny pitch .

"You're just a poor _**half-breed hussy daddy took pity on**_. I told him it was a bad idea, but no, daddy's evil knows no bounds for _**even unworthy ones**_."

Mojo gapped from the sidelines, reaching into his uniform in a flash as the girl touched down within range atop a phone booth, only to find his favorite blaster riddled with gremlin bites.

"You had to get him to hate you so much and then _**threw it back in his face**_. _**Threw it! Daddy was so sad**_."

Sedusa's hair drew all the way back like an injured animal, moving around her head in a shapeless blob. Blood dripped from the diamonds in a clenched white fist.

'You couldn't even give a _**daughter**_ right, you halfies are so _**broken**_. But don't worry; daddy's _**love**_ fixes it all. He deserves _**everything**_. _We deserve it. You are no mother, but she is a perfect sister..._"

A stroller appeared, draped in all the finery of a Victorian summer's day, a mix of pink velvet and white lace over sandy wicker.

If Ursula was Him in feminine miniature, the figure pushing the stroller to earth and cooing at its contents was a smaller version of him still, only a bit plumper in her cheeks, framed by a short messy bowl cut of curls that bounced playfully around a green and white striped headband. The newcomer stepped to the side and curtsied with a deep dip in a matching green gingham dress.

Black lips strained the deeply embedded thread sewn between them in a smile.

_"Oh, this is just Myrdal. She did her own makeup years ago because she said too much, **isn't it pretty**?"_

Myrdal reached into the stroller, one of her claws clicking softly together like the buzz of a telegraph. Ursula nodded in agreement.

"_Our_ sister.._**Suzette**_."

Sedusa's legs gave out, her lip shaking with chopped small breaths.

"_No...she was dead...I saw..."_ Her voice strained.

The red coloring around wide black irises faded.

"Didn't you know? We're all born dead. _**The ones Daddy keeps...**_"

The bundle in Ursula's arms struggled and broke into a cry, a tiny claw reaching for the comfort of overhanging black curls.

_"No..."_

In one bright laugh and storm of clicks the black bag, all but forgotten here it had been tossed, moved of its own power.

It oozed where it came into contact with moving hair, melting pavement.

"_The ones whose mamas __**aren't deserving**__...Remember, remember do you remember ?'_

White skin faded to a stone grey, red electric energy splitting the ebony waves into glossy scales.

_"No...She can't, can't be one...Suzette, do you remember mommy? Do you..."_

A nest of fresh red snake's eyes flicked and danced just as pure, sightless ones on the medusa's own weaved in the direction of a second cry.

_**"That's it, good halfie, born of human and monster blood. Return to darkness..be useful..."**_


	11. Hope I

_? ?, 2005 ?:? PM_

* * *

_**Future.**_

* * *

_"I'm sorry Mr. Utonium, to put it plainly..."_

_"What's wrong Doctor, is she?"_

_"I'm not sure how to say this, the excruciating cramps should subside with age however..I am afraid your daughter is sterile."_

_"She's only twelve Doc, how can I..I mean she and her sisters might-"_

_" A most curious thing, where the DNA should be also..."_

_"Blossom! How long have you been listen-_

_Oh, sweetheart,_

...my perfect little girl..."

* * *

_April 1st, 2013_

* * *

Blossom's world came back into focus.

Three days.

Three days in this place.

She sighed, shifting her feet with a rattle of chains, the tiny protest of much weaker screws dying a moment later where metal met the stone of the enclosure.

Nothing.

On any other day it would have meant a second of a pull, giant fragments of rock, crushed skulls of enemies, and justice served.

_Nothing_.

The Antidote X bomb, with a timed amount of explosive fall out every hour, was a stroke of genius.

She had admitted that much to herself fourteen hours ago.

Of course, the facts of forty-seven point five hours ago made that genius more of a footnote than anything but still.._still_...

"Are you awake?"

She asked, her voice cutting a crisp echo through the dusty air of the oil fume blanketed prison.

The small black fur covered body, half sitting up and suspended from identical restraints on the opposite wall, groaned.

His head turned toward a sliver of light from a narrow slit of a window, sweat glistening off an already drenched coat.

_Poor M-_

Blossom stopped herself mid-thought.

No, it wasn't right to feel sorry for him.

_He got himself into this mess._

Hollowed out asteroid, intelligent rebellious (and later it turned out, mutinous) monkeys, and all.

_Still_...

Blossom's flat brow wrinkled.

The small chimp thrashed, somewhere beyond thought, the shackles on his arms drawing forth fresh trickles of bright blood.

_Still, Mojo's whole conscious focus relies on Chemical X, we only lose our powers..._

Blossom smiled upward at the distinct sound of a fist hitting an enhanced radiation suit wearing monkey super soldier.

_For a while..._

Bright pink eyes turned back to consider Mojo.

_Who knows what prolonged exposure to the antidote could do to him?_

"You know where you go wrong don't you?"

Blossom whispered, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

The tiny trail of ice breath, so weak and momentary it weaved like a strain of spider silk through the air, came to rest against the chimp's feverish forehead.

"You never test plans."

A groan. A breath.

"Untested theory will be the death of you, Mojo Jojo."

Mojo growled lifting a chained foot upward to scratch his cheek.

_"Not if it is your own first."_

Three days.

And their talks always started just the same way.

* * *

_**Hope.**_

* * *

The horizon of Farmsville turned golden heads of ripe wheat toward a blazing sun, erupting into roaring flames, smelling of twice cooked hay and an over barbecued hamburger or twenty from the grazing fields above.

A large irrigation ditch filled with already steaming water trailed down to the sub-valley beyond, thousands of the citizens of Townsville sitting among the green glossy leaves and vines of Mr. Weisenheimer's prize cucumber crop like homeless weeds.

The tallest of the human part of the gathering, a very frazzled looking Ms. Bellum, stood propped up against a small scarecrow on a high pole, the honorable mayor around her ankles in his blue footie pajamas.

"Whose responsible for leading us into all this ruin and leaving the girls bodies all alone?" The Mayor cried, hitting and ground with his fist, snow-white bread long shaded with gray dust.

The scarecrow rustled.

"Aw who am I kidding? We're doomed, doomed, doo-" The Mayor reached into his pockets, scooping out a dozen tiny plastic pastel horse figures.

" Go pretty ponies, Daddy can't save you anymore! Be free!"

The pony dolls landed with a lifeless plop into a mud puddle, lost in the foghorn sound of a nose-blow into Ms. Bellum's long ragged dress.

The scarecrow rustled.

"Ah?" The Mayor's almost blind grey eye peered over his assistant's hip.

The shadowed scarecrow froze mid-step, sweating a single blade of straw.

"Hmm?" The small man's monocle glinted, coming within an inch of a lopsided fanged grin that slowly grew, suddenly bursting with gleeful song:

_"Oh, If I only had advanced mental capabilities!"_

The scarecrow leapt up to old worn fence posts, followed by the delighted sounds of a less than enlightened crowd.

_"I could waste many hours, consorting with the flora, corresponding with the precipitation-!"_

The daisy and bluebird now hovering above the scarecrow's head as he skipped blazed in the heat of a speeding volcanic rock' revealing a wide eyed Mojo Jojo.

A hand-like foot in its hole riddled white boot took a half skip more in the dance- toward- a -general- away-to-Citysville-and-parts-beyond- direction, only to find its way blocked by a much larger red high heel.

"Oh no you don't, you're staying right here and being held accountable."

Ms. Bellum held a sizable book in front of her face, giving its contents a sound thump on the villain's flat nose.

" Trust me Mr. Jojo, if our town still had a courthouse..."

Mojo winced, hands flying up to his ears. The voices of Fuzzy Lumpkins mourning the death of Joe, a very hungry Billy, and the general populace of Townsville grew on and on as his eyes closed tighter, green claws digging into pointed earlobes.

"Quiet!"" Pink eyes flashed, bringing sudden complete silence.

"..And then I said, if that's not your litterbox then..."

Talking Dog gulped under Mojo's glare, tucking his tail between his legs and his muzzle quickly behind White Cat.

"Wait, stop, and desist this ostracizing of Mojo!" Mojo Jojo began again, lifting up his arms.

"People of Townsville! It is not through any failure of my own I have come to you having any shortcomings with which I have previously possessed!"

He gestured to the distant skyline of Townsville, where occasional red dots sped around plumes of smoke, and what looked like four flying horses, like hyperactive popcorn.

"It was that accursed troop of demon children and apparently, Ima Goodlady's inability to keep the contents of her pants properly contained that has at present ended my reign in the city and resulted in its occupation by a very unpredictable medusa creature."

Mojo spat, making a dismissive hand flip over the sound of the Mayor eating a raw prize winning cucumber like a rabbit.

"I mean come on, how many have actually been as stupid as to _sleep_ with The Sir Of Sirs?"

In a sudden uneasy silence, over one-third of the men, woman, and creatures of the crowd raised a sea of hands.

The silence seemed to deepen as everyone turned to a small green hand in the very front, raised just a moment late.

"What? Him is much hot, yes?" Lil' Arturo said with a sidelong smile.

A general mummer of agreement met Mojo's fleshly slapped forehead and suddenly very worn looking eyes.

"Mojo needs a drink."

"Hard liquor or Chardonnay?" A warm purr of a voice asked for the depths of a miniature expensive looking rolling suitcase, as White Cat's face resurfaced, two mini bar sized bottles in his mouth.

The cat's mouth fell slack, his eyes suddenly widening to black orbs as he dived back into his bag, one of the bottles scattering with a dramatic crack.

A second later the rest of the gathering felt the unsettled heavy air.

With a dancing of vines, it whipped into a wind and then a tide of black, sucking up the color of the plants it traced across as it took shape in a pool, edged with flames the deep burgundy of a fine red wine.

The flames grew tight and lengthened, falling apart.

The darkness faded, leaving a tall, white haired, horn headed man, dressed in impeccably clean uniform grey.

He flicked his flame edged cape to the side with the flurry of a solder reporting for duty, the fire like spell apparently more fashion than real hazard.

"The children will be safe. Citysville's Red Cross sends its regards."

Mr. Green said with a sad look from his one good eye. Mojo growled, not lost to the notice the monster was addressing the common crowd of Townsville and not what little power he retained.

"And _only_ them. It seems Townsville adults possess the reputation for being troublemakers who brought this upon themselves."

Mojo's face hid a small, satisfied smile with a fake whistle as Mr. Green turned to look downward.

"What is that I heard? Something about a medusa?" Mr. Green asked.

"Lotta good talking ever did," A small voice interjected. "-we're a pickle and cheese toasted sandwich without the pickles or the cheese! We're done we're-"

Ms. Bellum took the tearful Mayor under her arm like a two year old, wisely fishing a hot pink, glittery maned Pretty Pony from the mud and into his hands as she went pass.

"Yes, a medusa, you know something of this occurrence which has happened and?" Mojo asked without pausing.

"Of course I do, we went to the same school on Monster Island before...it was very eventful... " Mr. Green's one visible red eye grew distant as he shook his head.

"Nevermind that, who was the last male she saw the face of, quickly!"

He asked, fishing up Mojo to his high vantage point like he was a small stuffed animal. The chimpanzee gave a tiny shrug.

"Oh dear,you didn't by any chance look in her eyes and-?" Mr. Green's one free hand fingered the edge of his eyepatch nervously.

Mojo Jojo, cut off so many times from his trademark speeches was becoming very skilled at looking anywhere but into that inquiring green skinned face.

"..Of course you did." Mr. Green sighed, beginning to pace.

"All right, all right, let me just take a quick roll call of the children here and then I will accompany you..."

"Hey, where'sss Sssspunk?" Snake asked as the smaller citizens of Townsville began to file forward and sit silently with wide eyes in front of Mr. Green's black boots.

"He's not with you?" Ace shouted, backhanding his underlings all in turn.

"I thought Billy had 'em!" Snake whined.

"What's this?" Mr. Green grabbed a small slip of paper on the ground scrawled with blue crayon.

Grubber grabbed the paper in turn, a sickening sound accompanying his reformation in a very normal looking green gentleman with a slight accent, beginning to read:

_Dear Pops,_

_Gone to help mom escape from the loud girl. Don't worry, kay?_

_Spunky_

_P.S._

_Borrowed some of Teach's zappy coat._

"Oh dear, oh dear..." Mr. Green half turned, a sizable square of fabric missing from a spot that also contained a tell tale set of safety scissors.

"Oh dear, dear, dear..." The word become a ghostly chant as he plucked Mojo Jojo up again without so much as a warning, wrapped the flaming cloak around them both in one graceful motion, and was gone.

Mojo's stared screech still hung in the air as Ace and his gang huddled.

"What're we gonna do Ace?" Snake asked.

"Si, we're just normal green skinned guys, we don't have no powers." Lil' Arturo added with a sad glance down, kicking a stone.

"Maybe so fellas, but I just happen to know someone with the next best thing..." Ace smiled, pushing back his sunglasses.

* * *

**Oh no! As untold tragedy imprisons the Earth below and our heroes journey onward, a question lingers. A question that embodies the very meaning of humanities existence...**

**Are we there yet?**

As the narrator's voice faded away from the demon faced lion making its way up the long box like glass steps suspended on nothingness, the clouds swayed pink and orange in the setting sun.

_"Is there anybody going to listen to my story_  
_All about the girl who came to stay?"_

A small, gruff voice cut into Him's airy song.

"Blossom? Blossom? Great just great. First you betray me and all of Townsville, then I still end up having to carry your existential fainting ass."

_" She's the kind of girl you want so much_  
_It makes you sorry .."_

The illusion of a now five years old again frame bent onto the glass steps in front of the looming manticore, coming back up with a ginger haired little girl in pink and hosting the body onto her shoulders.

_'Still you don't regret a single day. **A giiiiirl...**"_

"She's not heavy, noo, she's my sister. Good ol' pack mule Buttercup will do it! Unless...someone else would like to hel-"  
Buttercup turned ever so slightly from her indigent mumbling.

_"**Giiirl**, girl..."_

The singing stopped suddenly inches behind the two with a snap of its three jaws.

"Shan't!" Him rolled his eyes, busying his mighty lion forms' unnatural reach with repositioning the sleeping Bubbles across his neck.

"Oh, thats right, I forgot He Is soo Majestic thinks you have cooties, or whatever. Not that I blame him..."

_"When I think of all the times I've tried so hard to leave her, **she will turn to me and start to cry**..."_

"Alright already, be straight with me, Him!"

Him's new feline eyes widened for a breath before settling into a quick glance toward Bubbles and back.

"Fine, fine, but the time and place could be _**ever so much more comfy**_."

"Huh?" Buttercup's lip pulled up with a mirroring eyebrow.

"What do you? _**Ah, yesss**_…_Hey_."

Golden eyes smoldered right into her own with all the effect of a punk rocker turned professorial kick boxer who enjoyed saving puppies on the weekends.

" Arg, no!" Buttercup shivered from head to toe, wiping her face and stamping her foot. "Tell the truth!"

"The T word! Oh, wildflower, **how you betray! **_How I recoil!_"

If Him had been in a human form Buttercup swore he would be clasping claws to his heart and falling with a dramatic gasp for life.

"Yeah, yeah, you heard me. You love talk but you love violence even more, too much for there not to be a twist. I'm not Blossom, my best reading is _people_. It's a battle isn't it?"

Him smiled, his mouth traveling upward farther than any flesh and bone mouth.

"Trust me, what liiiies beyond this stately wall, is a battle not to be won with _our_ flair at aaall...

* * *

"What wall?" Buttercup's voice, from somewhere..far away, as she opened her eyes slowly.

It came as less of a shock than Blossom had ever thought that she and her sisters seemed to be five again.

_Of course, our real bodies are back on earth, and Bubbles is some sort of if theological manifestation now, why should energy have limited form?_

Blossom's inner monologue cut short as she slipped from Buttercup's back, their line slowing to a stop.

Ahead, Him's scorpion tail started to sway, quickening to a full on annoyed semi-circle.

Pieces of pure white paper, finely cut into the shape of feathers settled, a figure beginning to melt from the mist at the top of the glass stairway.

Polished metal wing bones beneath the layers of paper folded with a creaking twist of shrews, soon hidden within the folds of a glinting gold rode.

_"Well, well, look what dragged in the cat."_ A small, warm voice begin over blue lips.

When black lips parted in return, their words were more of a growl, edged with chill.

_**"Girls, may I have no pleasure in introducing Nicodemus, my...elder brother."**_


	12. Hope II

_? ?, 2006 ?:? PM_

* * *

_**Present.**_

* * *

_"Did you hear about the new kids?"_

_"The three freaks?"_

_"Yeah, kicked out of their old school for skipping too much, or something."_

_"I hear their dad's all rich."_

_"Who?"_

_"I dunno he's some sort of scientist, some old Japanese guy."_

_"Creepy!"_

_"Yeah, made them out of test tubes and.- shh! It's them!"_

_"They're looking at us! Don't move-"_

_"Japanese huh?"_

_"Yeah, so?"_

_"That last one, if her eyes weren't all gross, she could almost pass for normal, not lab shake and bake..."_

_"Yeah, normal ugly."_

* * *

_June 5th, 2010_

* * *

_God, he smelled wonderful._

It was a warm musk, melted away at the edges by the cool breath of a standing fan.

The best times were when no one else could see.

Buttercup rolled over feeling the cool fabric against her skin.

When there were no crowds, when the excessive roar stopped, no one cared.

Not about pretty hair or bows or how much fun she wasn't at a party.

No he didn't care ether.

And why should he?

Buttercup forced her eyes open, their green shining in the dim gray of morning mixed with cigarette smoke.

She braced back her powers as she moved, feeling the warm resistance of a lean arm around her bare chest, the brush of body hair against a hip.

Buttercup watched the mess of black hair, frayed like an unkempt undernourished horse, rise and fall around his sleeping face.

Sometimes this was nicer than sleep.

She took in the sound: Soft breath, weak, human, beaten down by a world of work and responsibility.

It was easy enough to break a human body. So many things wanted to...Too many things.

_"No."_ The word was softer than a whisper.

Softer than non-freak ears could hear.

The one word he said.

Always on the edge of waking.

Always when she pulled away.

Buttercup turned completely, gently untangling the sheet and his arms in a single move and floating up to retrieve her t-shirt from the overhanging light fixture.

The puffs flabbergasted sigh drifted up from fishing for her jeans among a pile of cloths on the floor .

_"Two hours still."_

His plead fell, warm, full of need.

_Lonely._

"What would everyone think?" Buttercup asked, not daring to look back at the eyes watching her every movement.

Not questioning. Not judging. Watching, only watching...

_"That you stayed."_ Ace said, his voice smaller than she had ever heard it.

It was easy enough to break a green-skinned human body. Too many things...

_I won't let them._

Buttercup held the outside doorknob for a long moment, leaving behind a perfect palm indent.

* * *

_**Hope II**_

* * *

A room, long forgotten, caked in years of dust, disturbed only by the imprints of a trail left along one clear wall by small boots, doubling over and over on themselves many times.

The Ganggreen Gang hugged along this trail through the apocalyptic power outage, their flashlight beam taking in the limited but awe-inspiring sight:

The walls of what looked like it was once a packing warehouse, painted a neon pink, and dotted with baby powder shaded hearts. Mobiles with interlinked hearts, stars, rainbows, and unicorns hung from the ceiling, spinning in a slight draft to clink against a central heart, each embossed with the letters 'PPG'.

On every free spot of wall were the glass shelves:

Illuminated from below like fine China, a complete collection of empty Powerpuff Bellywashers juice bottles, Blossom Bubbles and Buttercup bobble heads, and the girls along with Mojo Jojo, forever immortalized in fast food plastic form.

Ace shivered as a case of Buttercup UFO catcher and US crane game dolls played an empty eyed staring match with a display of Bubbles and Blossom face shaped pillows, the largest of which, a Blossom pillow buddy, seeming to follow him around the room.

Lil' Arturo shook his head as he dug into one of the many boxes the filled most of the center of the room, coming up with an armful of Powerpuff Girl comic books in different languages. His eyes skimmed the cover of one, written in flourished Spanish text.

"'_Blossom, the smart, wise and brave fights the horrible green gang!_' Bah, what a bunch of junk, this Mojo has! Denial, she is not just a river..."

"Dah, Powerpuff dollies!" Big Billy shouted in agreement, picking up the full length of a child size hooded bathrobe printed with Bubbles face and sporting it proudly as a new hat.

"Just keep your eyes peeled for anything breathin' okay guys?" Ace rolled his eyes at his gang's forgetful attention spans, fishing a wayward block from a powerpuff themed LEGO set from his boot. "This'll be where Mojo keeps all the good stuff to. We didn't come here to do no monkey's dirty laundry."

Lil' Arturo blushed a bright green, letting a pair of leopard print speedos fall from his small hand and kicking the offending box off in the opposite direction.

"Wouldn't hurt him none to wash somethin'-" His overbite drew up in a gasp as a sudden flash of movement drew up around the dusty boxed depths, making its way through spaces far smaller than any human.

"Hey Ace, Snake's love worm, it found a pulse!"

Snake shot Lil' Arturo a glare as a long lite yellow line of color crawled its way up the outside of his baggy jeans, curling itself two times around Snake's lean torso from behind and resting its white spotted head near his ear, flicking a bright tongue eastward.

"Don't you ssspeak sso of Shashela! Sshe's a boa conssstrictor!" Snake cooed the last r of the word with the edge of a melody, weaving a black fingerless gloved hand under the snakes wedge-shaped head and air kissing where its tongue had been a breath before. "Who'sss a fine girl? Yesss you are!"

Lil' Arturo wrinkled his nose, catching Snakes' quick dart of glance in Ace's direction.

"Si, si, whatever. _Best amigo snubbed and rebound crazy snake love..._"

The sound of grubber's normally bent over back rearranging again back to a normal human spine cut the snappy comeback growing in Snake's hurt expression short.

" I say, whatever does this contraption activate?" Grubber's fake accent asked.

Big Billy lifted a blanket of heavy tarp in the center of the room under the warehouses tiny skylight at the same moment as Grubber flipped a switch with a finger, sending everyone into a coughing fit under a cloud of dust.

The beam of tinted pink light blazed, cutting though the grey air and glinting off the skylight glass with the warm cheer of sugarcoated sunshine. Ace and his gang stood in silence from a moment, taking in the circle of of a heart and the PPG lettering within it embossed in the distant grey clouds above outside heavy with impending rain.

"Well I'll be, it's that old signal thing on some sorta generator, still works..." Ace turned, digging his hands into his pockets and falling back to let Snake's Shashela heavy arm lead the way. "Again, not what we're lookin' for, gotta focus! Hey, there!"

Ace smiled, dipping his sunglasses down on his nose.

"Okay now, put him up over there Billy, light might do it. Worst thing for ah hangover."

Big Billy nodded, picking up what they had just found and plopping it down like a sack of bricks unceremoniously at the base of the signal light.

The professor's salt and pepper hair dipped as his square jaw fell back into the collar of his torn once white lab coat.

"Hey gramps, wake up, rise and shine!" Ace yelled as Grubber slapped his face, leaving a perfect hand print across his cheek. "Smell the burnt petunias! Gramps!" Grubber grinned at Ace's nod, giving the Professor another slap to match its twin.

"C'mon Prof, join the livin' while we still got any!"

The clear almost trustworthy tone of the gang leaders' voice was slowly, ever so slowly, met with the opening deep dark eyes, edged with bloodshot red.

"Hm? G-girls?" The Professor's gravelled voice asked.

Snake shook his head where the boa's own had joined him within his forest green hoodie.

"Ssorry Sssir, but have we got a sstory for you..."

* * *

Mojo Jojo, supervillain mastermind, growled as his stomach silently flipped between pleading for a banana milkshake and stinking slowly into the feeling of dread that looked to have eaten Townsville whole, leaving only the bones of everyday existence.

"I do not like this plan. I do not like this plan at all." He said as Mr. Green knelt beside him once more, the red flame like fabric blinking them back into being a fair distance from where they had started, behind yet another hill of rumble.

With each teleportation the mild-mannered teacher's breath grew heavier and labored, sweat gathering below his good eye.

"I do not care what magic tricks like this you may possess as I know quite certainly and undoubtedly the magic which these children are using sustained by forces which-"

The loud snort that accompanied a large claw like green hand slapped over his mouth startled the remaining filibustering air from the chimpanzee's chest in one blow.

"Stay behind and stay quite still until I call for you, and promise!" Mr. Green's red eye caught Mojo's own. "Promise you will not think badly of me? For what I must do?"

Mojo made a silent motion across his heart.

"Good then!" Mr Green smiled. His teeth looked odd suddenly, as if they were too big for his jaw, his one eye following suit into a much larger red rimmed pupil, his long pointed ears flicking one way and then the other, appearing for all the world to now contain hair the same green shade as his skin.

Mojo gulped as the creature that was once Mr Green dropped with a well-practiced scurry to the ground, sniffing in deep lungfuls of dust and scent while in the same moment growing two feet of muscled form and a long white tufted tail, giant black hoofs the width of volleyballs bursting from the confines of the scraps of his former boots.

When the monster leapt to his two footed gait again the head he lifted to the cloud filled sky supported a wedge-shaped cow's muzzle with a large wet black nose, heavy under its chin with the fat of a fighting bull, his long white hair even longer, framing the two arching horns.

"_Remember_!" The minotaur said, its voice a warm rumble as it sprinted off into the haze.

Mojo let his frown fall back from astonished to its worn heavy scowl, brow wrinkle and all, as he began to follow with quick steady steps.

"Manticores! Demons! Medusa! And now minotaur of all such things! This is ridiculous, and absurd! Before this end of the world killing of many and innocent robo jojos and all matter of upsets nothing was as it seemed now but just as it appeared then! This ridiculously two natured nature of monsters and things that do not concern Mojo. 'Is Mojo a chimpanzee? _Nooo_, Mojo is actually a four armed spider monkey who throws gumballs of acid! _Booow to the burning power of Mojo!_' "

Mojo Jojo wiggled his arms with a mocking wave as his stomach made a 2nd request for a milkshake from the pile of ash that had once been the Otto Time Diner.

_? ?, 1998 ?:? PM_

* * *

_**Past**_

* * *

_"Look Mommy, it's them!"_

_"Them who?"_

_"The new heroes, Blossom, Bubbles 'n Buttercup!"_

_"Who is that blue one, putting band-aids on the monster?"_

_"Oh that's Bubbles, she's-"_

_"My, she seems very happy doesn't she? How odd..."_

_"Her eyes are sad..they're sad, Mommy..."_

* * *

_April 4th, 2013_

* * *

_She had won...They had won!_

Bubbles let the still deepening events of battle wash over her spinning head, heavy as the half empty cup she placed, nearly spilling off the nightstand.

Part of the room glowed with evening, fused with the reality of Him's study, always the same when she found him asleep after 'work':

A large stained glass window, throwing its light in every imaginable hue of color onto a mountain of books thousands of pages long... A bulletin broad covered with countless yellow post-it notes, each with a single scribbled word in quill dip pen, keeping the mass-produced graphic of a rubber duck upon the right corners company.

"What do they say?" Her voice asked in a time that felt like years ago.

Ursula's smile and laugh came back like a bell as Bubble's palm reached toward the newest note.

"Silly, they don't _say_ anything!"

A rustle from the bed in the fused rooms brought to Bubbles senses the smell of cinnamon and the sensation of velvet.

"Wellll, wellll, good morning my alarm clock. Is it truuly daylight savings already or are you really ooh sooo happy to see me?"

Bubbles giggled at the sound of a blanket moving and a claw light on her shoulder, letting the ragged remains of her outer uniform fall, not looking back with a playful resolve.

"I wouldn't know, I'm looking for a Lafayette."

The sound of a shiver. She fought a laugh.

"I have good news to tell him."

"Do yoou?"

"Yes, yes, I dooo."

Bubbles smirked, sitting down to barely float at the edge of bed.

"Aaaah, such a gooood wiggle of a moood you're in. My sunshine, **the earth says hello**..Oooh my, you are sooo simply banana dappled with bruises!"

Bubbles giggled as Him's completely at peace naked body edged forward to sit behind her, his long lanky legs falling to each side, framing her own.

"And I didn't cause them, oooh!"

She felt his claws stop playing what felt very much like tic-tac-toe with spots between her bra and panty line.

"It's someone else isn't it? Is, is he better than meee? Tell, tell me true! **So I can crush-**"

"It was Mojo!" Bubbles took in a deep breath. "We beat him at a place he made called Asteroid M and they're were all these monkeys and an antidote X bomb and-"

Him let out a theatrical gasp.

"Moojoo, my old friend!"

Bubbles lifted an eyebrow.

"Friend?"

"Mojo, my old acquaintance, underling, copyright infringer, and **defiler of my precious loofah**! I should have known and..hm?"

Bubbles laughed, settling and leaning back.

"What?"

"Oh dear one, did your forces of good and sweetness celebrate afterward?"

"Of course! I bought you some things from the party..."

"Hmm?"

"But I sort of dropped them..."

Him reached over to the nightstand as the office melted back into the wall, replaced with climbing ivy wallpaper, Tiffany style lamps, and the black tomcat, Scruples, sleeping with an air of smugness on a hill of blue lace pillows in a corner.

The demon sniffed the plastic cup, rolling the last sip around between his black lips.

"_Spiced apple juice_. You, my wife, _are druunk_."

Bubbles giggled again, shooting a dirty look over her shoulder where he had set to quick work, dotting each bruise with his tongue.

"I am not!" She shivered.

'All that's in it was sugar and spice an apples and..ooh." Bubbles shivered again, laying against Him as he returned to rest, pulling her along with him.

"_Don't worry, don't fret, don't have any care, I never make love to anyyyone under drink. So common, predictable, easy. It never ever satisfies, nooo.__**Not as those given under truth..**__."_

"Never?"

The colors dimmed.

"_Never..and never __**as you do...**_"


	13. Justice

Author's Note: _ I would like to thank my longtime readers, especially Busterella, Candynights, Aquilldeferred, Groudon202,Night-owl-9, and Ragnarok-08._

_Without you I would not have had the strength to pick this up again, or the belief in my own writing to begin the 3rd and final part of the trilogy. Thank you._

* * *

His skin was blue, the color of the sky after it had just been wiped clean with winter rain. Somehow, as well accustomed as Blossom was to Him's skin being a shade of dark red only shamed by a cardinal's plumage, this new man's blue complexion, completed by short dark navy roman style curls set off by the grey gathering clouds below, seemed oddly foreign.

"This is altogether very uncustomary. Taken and back so soon from your cleaning. So, so, you must be the perfect one..."

_He..couldn't really be Him's brother could he? An older brother? They looked the same age!_

Blossom pondered, recoiling slightly in alarm when the newcomer suddenly knelt before her, the gaps in his gold robes showing bare legs and feet. Normal feet...

The blue hand that reached for her palm gently was long with the five fingers of a piano player, raising and kissing it . The kiss, a light feeling of a butterfly alighting.

Him made a loud stomach turning gagging sound.

"Where diiid you get that line, the dead sea scrolls?"

Blossom took back her palm as quickly as she dared, fixing the paper winged figure right in his green eyes. His face was slightly rounder than Him's, unlined, with a bluish blush of health that unlike the demon's looked naturally sun born.

"Where..where are we?" Blossom asked. "And who are you really? You don't look anything like Him-"

"Small favors, different mothers.." Him butted in.

"-And as near as I can tell we're as high as this crazy trip goes and we really have responsibilities back on earth so-"

" So very dutiful to! Again, I am called Nicodemus..." He bowed again, his flat paper feathers fluffing outward to form a decorative cape.

"Captain of the idiots and show choir." Him added from somewhere behind his back. Nicodemus very human shaped ear twitched, the swirl pattern it shared with he demon's moving slightly.

"_Gatekeeper_ and protector of the outer realms...I am also a philosopher, by trade.."

_"An ooh so fancy term for being unemployed and window gazing..."_ Him ended in a whisper.

The angel produced a long trumpet with a gold banner suddenly from the golden robes, running his fingers over ivory keys in bright turn as if about to play, before Him, standing over Bubbles getting off his back, caught his eye.

"I see your slow growth finally saw fit to grace you with a mane Lafayette!"

Buttercup gave him an uneasy glance.

"Don't worry, his name is merely a name here, mercy be, as are all names, all words..."

"Oh, go blow your horn little boy blue, _**do**_..." Him sneered.

Nicodemus laughed, blowing a light fanfare that ended with a warm look toward Bubbles.

" And this must be the lady, Death, my lady, I've heard very much about you..."

"Please, please call me Bubbles. I'm sorry, I haven't ever heard of you..that much.." Bubbles said with an awkward curtsey, pushing the low growling demon's pawed leg away from the space between them.

"I'm not surprised, if you were _my_ wife you would be treated much more to the hospitality of our family tree..."

"If she were _your_ wife, she would not exist." Him sneaked from the edge of his mouth, looking with large, innocent, shining yellow eyes as Nicodemus whipped up to his level.

"... it's such a _shame_ we see him only once every thousand years..."

"And it is a shame you are so very _prideful_ about it all."

Nicodemus reacted to the word as if it was a slap, clinching his teeth in return.

"It is not ill pride if it is the truth."

"What does let you sleep well, brother?"

"Excuse me, I know we're only visitors but..." Bubbles began, tugging on a handful of the glittering robe. The fact that what muscle and form beneath it lacked all modern modesty and undergarments looked to be lost on the magical form of the small blue eyed five year old.

Blossom found her lower jaw again and pushed it upward with a small click.

"Oh no, excuse _me_ my lady, you are most welcome. I can't believe that I will soon be..may I?"

Nicodemus reached down in question, keeping a respectful distance.

Bubbles nodded with a bright grin offering up her small belly.

The illumination of a flat pre-adolescent stomach flickered for a breath where the blue hand settled many inches away, rubbing the half sphere that every second or so resounded with the colors and fragile depth of a soap bubble.

"An uncle, a _true_ uncle, such a thing has _never_ been-"

Suddenly, a tiny spark like a miniature bolt of light flew off the long finger tips, the sphere fading all at once.

"_Ooow_! He _bit_ me! Your infernal son's soul, _biiiiit_ me!" Nicodemus whined loudly over the shaking hand already halfway in his mouth to suck away pain.

Him erupted with laughter, falling into a rolling furry red and black ball, his weight shaking the invisible glass blocks now making up the floor.

"That's-my-boooy! Oh yes! He-is-_**my precioooous one...**_!"

Bubbles looked to her stomach with a mix of shock and something near bewilderment, whispering to the unseen bump, patting it lightly with a palm, and pausing many times in turn.

Nicodemus blinked away the last of a threatening tear, reluctantly taking his hand from the safety of his very normal looking blue toned tongue to blow a 2nd fanfare on the bannered trumpet. The resounding echo still rang as he zipped behind the three puffs, pushing them all forward in a neat row.

"It is time, I am sorry Lady Bubbles, My Darling Perfection, Miss, you must be seen, separately I'm afraid. _Good 'morrow_."

Before them, a wire garden gate made of glass parted, the crystal lilies growing up its sides nodding in a non-existent wind.

Blossom felt the pushing hands of the angel long after they were gone, and the two voices that followed longer still...

"I never thought _you_ of all creation would need _booties_ to tread here!"

"They're not _booties_, they're _gauntlets_, strong _respectable_ shiny ruby inlaid armor of a dandy gentleman and-"

"What does let _you_ sleep well, little brother?"

_But...Is he really an angel? And if so..._

"_Wait, nooo, you can't mean, Bubbles and my child toooo! __**Return them to me,**__**they are mine bought and paid for dearly, dearly**__!_"

_"Peace! You to have an appointment, you'll see her soon en-"_

Blossom looked back.

Only darkness rose to meet her.

She was alone.

* * *

_**Justice **_

* * *

The first drops of heavy rain dotted the ground, painting the pavement between the high barrel towers of Townsville's famous Pier 79 a deep black grey.

Mojo walked with a slow spin every second step, the makeshift replacement for his damaged helmet, a large aluminum mixing bowl, taking on a growing gloss.

He edged behind the nearest barrels and crates, green hands working feverishly at the many severed wires within the hole riddled casing of his last remaining laser blaster.

"You are small but so is Mojo, and I am not done with the fight any more certainly than you are ceasing function."

He whispered to the gun, giving it a quick hug for luck.

Though he had never believed in an higher power than himself, Mojo Jojo silently promised himself, sitting in the ashy shadows, that if he got out of this alive he would be nicer to the world...

_Well, maybe nicer every Thursday, to one person if..._

Mojo's head whipped up from his hiding spot.

Four sets of bright mechanical red eyes glowed.  
With a deafening whirling of gears they dropped upon the bowl helmet with heavy thuds, stabbing into the covering with live wire trails.

Shaking his whole body sending the gremlins flying, Mojo Jojo screeched, the yellow beams of the laser gun hitting one of its marks by pure chance.

Wires and oil covered metal flew with a tiny green explosion.

The other gremlins froze, cocking their long ears at the tiny oil spot between them.

They looked up as one, cracking electricity carried into the rain around them, edging their metal fangs and leering eyes.

Mojo's face fell, the glass energy rod within the gun groaning with a loud shatter.

"Oh no..."

Suddenly the world between his trembling fingers fell away, a jolt of pain traveling up his body...which now appeared to be down.

"So there you are, monkey! I've been looking everywhere, you bad bad boy!"

Mojo craned his neck upward, catching sight of a pair of lace trimmed white bloomers buffeted by wind and bare coven hooves.

The small black furred body attached to the foot the demon's claw happened to be carrying went limp all at once, forcing the young villain to dip lower in the sky under the new slack weight.

"Oh yes, we are so very naughty! But we've got lots more friends to play with, and a moo bossy! Come see!"

"Moo bossy? I refuse to come silently while I still maintain-!"

Mojo's voice fell short where he was dragged hanging the opposite direction, eyes fixed to the sky.

The bright pink 'PPG' signal light shown in the distance, bringing a slow, bright smile to his fanged jaw. His eyes grew into agreeable slits, their light pink deepened by the distant beam.

"Yeees little girl, I would very much like to meet this 'moo bossy' as you put it. Why I feel as if I may be acquainted to with him and therefore reacquisition would be most agreeable..."

Ursula laughed, giving the trailing primate a hard shake in the air.

* * *

_This isn't real._

Miniature fragments of ceramic green tile clicked together, mimicking the movement of summer leaves.

Blossom's eyes adjusted with a squint, taking in the trunk and branches of the ornamental tree made from braided copper wire.

The sky, swirled blue and white, looked all the world like a pointillism painting, continuing with soothing areas of sandy tan marking the ground of the passing banks.

She stood up carefully, finding herself wearing a flowing white sundress woven with satin ribbon, the place beneath her feet moving at a uneasy drifting pace.

The water beneath the glass canoe glittered silver and gold in iridescent ribbons.

Breaking the otherworldly scenery now and then below the waters, what looked like normal, everyday store bought goldfish swam.

_I must be dreaming._

"Why would you think so?"

Blossom hopped up from her seat, nearly forgetting she still couldn't fly and turning over the boat.

The warm voice had the eerie air of being familiar and something she had never heard before.

It spoke as if in the absence of sound, filling the missing silence with raw feeling.

"Because a place like this can't be real."

Another was now sitting across from her in the boat..or had she been there all along?

"Can't it?" The woman asked.

She looked about half the height of Ms. Bellum, wearing those same golden robes as the angel, an added hood offering no trace of her features.

Blossom's pink eyes didn't waiver.

"No."

"Well I guess it is not real then." The intruder ended flatly.

"Who are you?" Blossom leaned forward.

The golden hood swung away to the side quickly with a shy shake, wisps of blue swirled hair escaping.

"I am Her who is..."

"Is who?" Blossom asked gently.

A long elbow length white glove reached from the figures robed, dipping into the passing waters.

"Who is it you wish me to be?"

Blossom sighed, the waters reflecting her frown among the quite ordinary goldfish that had taken to following after the five long fingers.

"Someone who is helpful..which I'm sorry, you don't seem to be..."

The woman's hand froze where she had begin to pet a fish with a lazy humming sound, retreating back into her robes , a flick of silver and gold droplets flying in the sunlight.

"I do seem to be much less than is helpful." The already soft voice drew up into a tight ball word by word. "It's I who should apologize, I've failed so very often..."

Blossom sighed again, this time forcing her best smile and reaching to pat the figure's much larger knee.

" I've only just met you. I just meant I _thought_ Him was taking us all the way up here-"

She gestured with a flourish to the speckled blue horizon above their heads.

"-to find some sort of perfect answer to all our troubles...That's always been my job..."

"Finding perfect or being perfect?" The woman asked, leaning forward.

Blossom shrugged.

"Both I suppose."

The depths of the golden hood whispered with the sound of wind moments after the puff leader finally realized she had been staring, the feeling of a kiss fresh on her small forehead.

"True perfection is not in lack of flaws if it is more than dreams."

The gold draped figure stood, growing slowly transparent.

"_Excuse me...__**Stop that! Stop that right now you two!**_"

The sky and water shook like rolling thunder as Blossom finally found her feet again, coughing and sputtering.

A bird made of folded paper alighted on the side of the overturned boat, whistling a cheerful tune.

* * *

The old Pokey Oaks playground, in ill repair since the location of the school moved nearly eight years ago, was a sad sight not helped much by it recent demon infection.

Where the cheerful kindergarten building itself had once taught the likes of the Powerpuff Girls, a lonely, bland, add on parking lot for the adjacent branch of the Lucky Captain Rabbit King Cereal Company now housed a single rolling tumbleweed.

Rusty play equipment and faded white hopscotch lines showed the signs of a small scale battle between the demon Myrdal, left holding the bag while her sister was away, perched on the jungle gym, and the boy standing below...

Face to face with a growling medusa.

The last of Spunk's specially mixed cheery bombs fell from his sling shot, unlit.

Myrdal clicked her free claw in a happy satisfaction, the thread of her sewn together mouth flexing against a smirk. Her other claw fixed tightly to the black bag and the silver chain that now ran from it, to a oversized spiked collar around Sedusa's neck.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry mom! I didn't mean to do nothin' bad!"

White sightless eyes turned, taking in the small voice. The villainess' face remained the color of cold marble, the moving wetness of its eyes the only betrayal of what had once been thought.

The red eyes of the skinny third grader grew wet with tears, wiped away quickly with a green skinned hand.

"Don't you love me and Pops no more? I'm sorry, I know it musta been somethin' I-"

"_Hurry, now!_" Mr. Green bellowed, grabbing the boy a second before what had once been his mother lunged. The red cape scooped the small frame up and in a blaze, both shapes were gone.

"Don't you remember me, Ima? It's me, Avery ..." He spoke in a soft steady tone, circling and edging toward her back.

The medusa breathed a low hollow note over a small tongue.

"Remember, your best friend from school? Everyone else laughed at you..until this..."

Arms and legs protruded on their natural joints like a spider as the creature slide about on its lower torso to face the minotaur's mighty height.

"Please, let me help you again..."

Sedusa sniffed the air, the nest of black snakes hissing. She lunged with a scream.

The demon in the air strained under the sudden effort of holding the chain attached to her new pet's collar, pulled though the air, the jungle gym she quickly grabbed for leverage uprooted.

The minotaur bobbed and weaved, throwing a kick into the side of the medusa's ribcage.

A loud crack, a low gurgle.

Mr. Green caught the dipped head with digging claws.

"Please Ima, you can be more-" A grunt of effort. "-you _are_ more than _what_ they want to use..."

The hair snakes struck, forcing the minotaur's tight neck grip.

Mr. Green swore, ripping his shoulder open with his free hand.

The oozing yellow venom mixed with blood and rain.

With a snort he twisted about on his hold and lunged , two black horns catching fast to the sides of the demonic collar.

Mr Green smiled, slipping an pre-made loop of red fabric over the soulless eyes and pulling it tight.

He whipped his horns free with a cocky smile.

"Well, well aren't _**you so strong**_ moo bossy?"

A glowing green metal ring flew, perching the bull man through the nose. The chain attached pulled taught from the depths of the black bag Ursula had now reclaimed, matching its twin in magical strength.

"But I'm _**better**_!" The demon spat with an echoing giggle.

Mr. Green wailed in pain. A sound tug knocked him off his hooves, smashing long ruts into remains of four square quart lines.

Slowly, the dragging pull brought the minotaur nearer and nearer the two small framed powerpuff bodies bobbing in their colored capsules.

"And now, what say _**we start the killing**_, okay dokay?"

* * *

Buttercup was alone.

_Of course, it always ends up like this._

She looked with a gloom filled huff at where she now found herself, tugging at the new impossibly frilly edged white sundress.

_'We'll get to you soon, Buttercup' and then boom, left out again._

The hall's solid transparent floor gave a clear view of rain and thunder in the clouds below. At the very lowest her under powered sight could make out a tiny glow like a pink light flickered.

Buttercup shrugged the detail off, her green eyes drawn to the walls of the hall.

The polished marble around equally spotless white doors were decorated with rich symbols of inlaid hammered gold.

Buttercup ran her palm over a sun, feeling the rough dimpling and making a silent game of it in her boredom.

Touching the slight dip of swirls, crosses, stars and moons, dragons and trees. Buttercup's path fell inward a bit ,making her stop mid-step.

The shape under her palm looked almost like a key, but was empty of all gold inside its craving nearly like the Key To the Wor...

"I missed you ..."

Buttercup turned away with a pause, catching the hint of a distance small clear voice and leaning toward the wall.

"_**I do..not**__.._love."

Him answering..or was it?

"Then why do you cry?"

Buttercup tip toed near one of the many doors, its weight giving away under her arm a crack, unlocked.

"Your kisses, they burn so..." The demon's voice, so weak she almost didn't recognize it.

Candlelight the color of poured honey bathed the corner of a pure white room giving the only feeling of depth to a sheet of rumpled linen upon a white table.

Buttercup darted away from the door with a sharp jerk as a flash of color drifted to kneel before it, relaxing when the figure cloaked in gold fabric showed not signs of turning.

Him, now back to his normal semi-human shape, lay on the sheet on his back, half covered at an unnatural angle she couldn't make sense of.

"Won't you sing for me?" The soft female voice asked. Long white opera style gloves from the folds of the gold robe produced a wrench, screwdriver, and pieces of cotton fluff.

"No..."

What could be seen of Him's upper head and bare torso wrenched in a muscle spasm.

"It's such a shame, your's was always the-"

"Noo..."

The tools set to small motions in the woman's hands, the one yellow eye Buttercup could make out widening, beads of sweat around it catching the light.

"-most beautiful voice. I'm sorry, there, how is that?"

"B-better. Fine...Lucy?"

"You named me that last time."

"Aaah... _Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you Julia..."_

A white gloved hand began to tremble.

_"Julia, Julia, her hair of floating sky is shimmering, glimmering, in the sun.._."

Finally losing it's grip on the wrench, the figure's hands flew to her cloaked face with a sob.

"Hush, you'll break my heart, that's enough! Rest now..."

Buttercup lifted an eyebrow in interest as the ghost like drift of gold, white, and two running bare very human like blue feet left the the white room as quickly and silently as it had appeared in her spying point of view.

She cracked a few of her unseen knuckles with a nervous gulp, entering the room after looking to both sides.

Him didn't stir, the song still tumbling from his black lips.

"_When I can not sing my heart, I can only speak my mind..._"

Buttercup half climbed, half scrambled with no flying powers, resting her arms on the high table, propping up her head while straining on tip toe.

"What was she _doing_ to you?"

Congealed blood stained the unnaturally white sheet, dotting the shine of the silver wrench.

What had once been Him's right hand, torn completely at the wrist, was warped halfway with makeshift bandage, the lower section of his claw sticking forward.

The upper part of the pincer lay inches away, oozing black from a deep hole in its center.

The bolt that had once held the two claw parts fast together rolled slightly.

Him smiled.

"What muuust be done, poppet, everything breaks, everything must be maintained, fixed. You would not know it to looook upon my glorious self, would you? That I would ever ask for help?"

"But this doesn't look ..."

Buttercup reached toward the large red bolt upon the table but just as quickly pulled her palm away.

As she watched the piece from the demon's claw she had never paid any mind to before seemed to rust within seconds, brittle and antiquated.

"Right?" Him laughed. "Few things dooo, all is bloody...Very...It is almost time now for oour kind, on Earth..." His eyes took on a far away look of deep bliss.

Buttercup looked away, but still found the pull of his words on her neck like a spider's legs.

"You woonder, why yoou, why your sister, oonly? Why not try to fix, tuurn Blossom, to corruupt she and wastes like my brother?" He paused, a cough drawing up black blood.

Buttercup's breath grew forced and dry, Him's own having drained all moisture from the air and replaced it with baking heat.

"You know of that boring oold saying, "The road to Hell..."? It is paved with her, Blossom, oh so deeply, Raven Hair..."

Buttercup found herself drawing nearer.

"Sit with an old man?"

Him's green eyes fought sleep, settling on her own and closing with a sigh of song.

_"..so I sing a song of love for Julia..."_

Buttercup sat.

* * *

Fifty-eight balloons of pink and silver blew and bobbed together in their tight bunching, holding up the back of Talking Dog's compact car.

It's owner, his well known talking reduced to a whimper as he slipped at the mercy of the wind, from driver to passenger seat without the added assurance of the ripped off doors, eyed the pool of water directly below.

The swimming sharks circled within with a click of clockwork.

The heavy bars of a cage near the pools rubber duck painted sides resounded with the still blindfolded Sedusa's chain against a pointed collar, she hair snakes climbing across one another in an eerie calm.

"I thought you said you were strong." Mojo growled, straining against the rope tied around his middle and fused into the concrete of a wall.

"I thought you said you were a genius. I told you to stay back!"

Mr. Green whispered, tugging the other direction where the chain wrapped his arms and hoofs, only coming away with a new deeper gash from the glowing ring through his oxen nose.

"Well, you get your extraordinary exposed brain hit in such a fashion three times a day for years and see how well you turn out.' Mojo shrugged, glancing at the minotaur with one eye. "Can't you just return to your normal form and slip out of that rope which would then be too big for-"

Mr. Green showed the edge of a single sharp white fang.

"I am a _monster_, not a demon or gnome! See how well you can relocate muscles tied like you are...like _everyone_ here is."

Mojo Jojo stole a quick guilty glance to his other side.

The entire living remainder of Townsville's adult population hung battered and cut, each tied into place with ropes and chains of varied magical strengths, suspended from the Lucky Captain Rabbit King Cereal Factory's twenty story wall.

Myrdal pushed her lips to one side under their sewn together black line, tossing a spent roll of pink duct tape just shy of putting pieces over Mojo and Mr. Green's mouths to match the countless mumbling prisoners.

"Well, well, see what **running away** does?" Ursula pinched Mojo's cheek with a claw, rubbing the top of its rough outer shell into the tender skin.

"Not very smart, **not at all**. Hiding at a farm, and bringing a **moo bossy** back to help."

She looked away to the sound of the opening and closing of her sister's claws where she was busy starting to cut Ms. Bellum's long red hair with an annoyed sigh.

Mojo Jojo grinned, the small movement of his head bringing his attention back to the distant pink 'PPG' spotlight nested on the gray clouds.

"No I don't know what I'm going to do with him-" Ursula sighed again, putting a claw on her hip.

_Click,click, clack._

"No I haven't thought of-isn't it more fun this way? You're just **jealous**!"

Myrtle put a claw on her own hip swaying and waving her other claw with a wrinkled brow.

_Click!_

Mojo Jojo slowly smiled wider as the two pressed nose to nose with low growls.

"Yes you are ! You're mad because Daddy promised I get to wear his boots for a whole day if I do very badly."

_Click, click?_

"Uh huh, his favorite everyday black ones!"

A white flash of light followed by a sonic boom made a streak across the sky.

The blinding force touched down feet from the tied up line of prisoners.

Mojo's cheeky grin finally fell apart into maniacal laughter.

"May I have the welcoming task of welcoming your doom! The enemies which my signal light which I have kept safe and sound for such a moment as this has drawn, the...Professor?"

Steam rose in light trails as the tall silhouette stood, his polished white armored arms shedding their dangling Gangreen Gang passengers.

The long square set jaw set locked in place as the worn joints of the power whirled with each heavy step, coming to a sharp stop in front of the demons hanging cartwheel.

"What have you done to my girls?"

Ursula smiled, drifting to one side and then the next of the helmeted face. The eyes under its blue visor followed her with a locked guarded glare.

"So you're the Professor! You are pretty but.."

In this slow moment she returned to skipping the rim of the black bag like a jump rope, looking down at it sheepishly.

"'m sorry, I'm jus' a little girl too. I dunno anything 'bout returning Powerpuffs!"

Ursula twirled back and away, the sights of an invisible weapons systems lasers from the powersuit making Mojo winch with a painful memory.

She came to rest beside Myrtle rocking the pink ribboned bassinet.

Sedusa, pacing back and forth on the tiny length of chain from her cage collar froze ever so slightly for a moment, her snakes taking in scent in the direction of the faint baby babbles.

The Professor's eyes narrowed.

"...But I do know how much you love KITTIES!"

The toddler hanging from her sister's claws in turn, held a very unhappy looking black cat, it's eyes glowing a death promising red.

Suzette's bright giggle buried the horror of the Powerprof's bloodcurdling scream.

Mojo sighed as the over six foot two middle aged scientist armed from helmet to rocket powered boot, jetted away from Him's everyday house-cat, followed by a quite tame looking cheetah, and ending the trailing line with White Cat, doing a quite impressive imitation of the classic hop of Pepé Le Pew.

Suddenly three new bright colors cut the sky , drowning out a spirited 'woohoo' and fist-pump from the villainous chimp.

"Oh little _loathsome_ girls, let me again welcome your true doom this time which is truly real and thus _worthy_ of stomping your deceptive behinds into ..."

"Aw, would you shut up already!"

The three demons flew down in interest around the three deep holes littered with the bent remains of monkey bars.

"The Rowdyruff Boys!"

A red and black striped hoodie pulled back with a whip, the little boy's red eyes looking very bored under his backward cap.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Boomer, playing with the pull string of his own hood snapped his gum and tucked it into his cheek with a showy vigor.

"You said we were free! It's only been three years!"

Butch ground his fist into his palm, the dust still setting around his white shorts, their legs so dirty they almost didn't match his brothers uniforms.

"You said we'd only have to come back once, answer that old signal thing that us to be..theirs."

Butch's green eyes settled on Ursula and Myrtle where they happen just come to stand in front of him without a word, Ursula's height falling just level with his own.

"Hey, who are these sissy red girls?"

Mojo made a movement of grand production with his tied up arms in their direction, an effort that ended up only being a chin point.

"Why they are your enemies! They are the ones I called you back this time only to lay waste to and show them without fail the true might of Mojo! For in exchange for a life of being free and doing as you wish in a far off city you promised that you would come back this once and use your powers to show the ingenious cunning of your creator saving the world from ending and in so-"

"No!" Boomer snapped simply, going back to reading a copy of The Great Gatsby he had produced from his hoodie pocket.

"Say wah?" Mojo gasped.

"He said no banana breath." Butch said folding his arms as Butch mimic him. "We all do."

Ursula crept over to Butch silently in the background, making a superimposed show of trying to fit the shadow of the rowdyruff's head in her extended fanged jaws for her watching sister. Her face fell as her mouth turned out to be too small, Myrdal silently giggling.

"No? NO! I gave you boys life! And you promised..!"

"We promised to come back once, we didn't promise to do anymore fighting for you." Brick sniffed as Myrtle poked a daisy into the loop of his hat from behind and darted away.

"But..I ..you..life..powers to..." Mojo sputtered as the other prisoners of Townsville watched with barely repressed hope in their eyes.

"Powers, powers, powers! That's all it ever was with you! Well, we're sick of it, dying over and over! All we ever was were powers to you! Some life, being a weapon!"

Brick grabbed a handful of Mojo Jojo's worn tunic, nearly taking the wall between him and Mr. Green along with his grip. The key to the world gave a weak jingle against its furry hiding spot.

"Well, now we got real lifes as people away from _them_ and we just had our first 8th birthday ever...And ya know what?"

Sweat ran down Mojo's face with a gulp as Brick's fist tightened . "We liked it. We liked it _lots_."

Boomer added a cheerful nod.

* * *

The sky took in a breath.

Bubbles watched as the clouds became loose patterns over her head, melting like tufts of cotton between the dots of blue sky.

The minutes could be hours of days as they passed away under her bare feet, feeling the slight give of the passing under the glass floor, gathering a small school of the encased goldfish.

She jumped, giggling from place to place and spun, dropping handfuls of the new white sundress to meet the snort that tugged from behind at her petticoat bow.

"Oh Bob, how in the world did you get here?"

The flying pale stallion snorted again, landing on its hunches and bending its ghostly head.

Bubbles put a five year old puff size palm under the bare jaw bone, petting the prismatic flesh of the much larger nose .

"Now, don't worry so much, you should be home, boy."

Bob's ears folded back with a tiny puff of mythical smoke.

"Oh, alright! Go graze over there okay? March!"

The horse whinnied, taking a playful nip at one of her pigtails and catering to a nearby corner.

_For such an odd place_ Bubbles mused _It sure does have plenty of glass. Such pretty grass to!_

She closed her eyes, taking in the sound of wind though the field if blue tinted wild barely, the accompanying purple daffodils nodding in harmony.

"That's Bob, you haven't met him yet but he is a very nice horse."

Bubbles began again after a long pause, returning to the talk she had begin some time ago with her unseen belly bump.

"He made me Death of course, but that's more of a title anyway."

Bubbles smiled taking on a slightly deeper soft voice.

" ' _We exist not because we are that that is, but because that exists and always shall'_ so he ..your father says.."

Bubbles rolled the suddenly heavy sounding title around in her head, feeling its weight for the first time.

The path between the tall grass branched off to a bridge and a small courtyard before she came to take in her surroundings again.

Walking over the arc made of glass with the etching of wood grain in careful small steps, avoiding the cracks between each plank, the small puff came to rest with a sigh on the rim of a two pool stone fountain.

"Am I really...?" She asked the chiming pools of silver and gold water.

"Are you really what?" A small voice whispered.

"Who...a fish?" Bubbles gasped only for a moment. The tiny blue goldfish in front of the mirrored image of her nose flicked a small fin.

Somehow talking this new whatever it was seemed better than nothing at all and twice as friendly as most creatures of the Townsville underworld to boot.

She smiled, shrugging.

"Ready. For a baby I mean..." She added, rubbing her stomach.

"I always thought..well I guess I thought..I'm not very mature. Mature like a woman, you know? Who takes the world seriously, who never cries, who is always strong, doesn't let anything get to her...Who can protect a baby because they're grown up..."

A small splash of water left Bubbles surprised blue eyes blinking. The fish laughed a tiny line of notes, jumping to and through.

"Are you a fish?"

"N-no." She replied following after the fishes path.

It took a mighty leap backward, the gold and silver waters under the bridge shining. A furry head with mint green eyes popped up from the surface with a gulp of air.

"Are you an otter?"

"No!" Bubbles laughed now to, the long furry body that waddled onto shore glowing again as it crossed the path, its legs growing upward and its nose long.

"Are you a deer, little miss?" The larger female voice asked as a small fawn bowed its blue china patterned head near her lap.

"No, of course not!" Bubbles shook her head with an extra giggle fueled drama.

"Well then, you must surely be a woman if that is what you desire to be, and mature if you are truly yourself."

The fawn nuzzled her stomach gently as she petted between its silky ears , it's bright eyes half closed and dozing.

"Do you wish to keep him?"

The small voice was clear and as heavy as the words her mind had been tossing about before with an uneasy sway.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

Bubbles tongue felt dry in her mouth as the fawn stared, it's mouth unmoving.

"The contract was broken two years ago, you are _free_ if you wish to..."

The smallest puff looked up at the wind blown clouds, watching their imaginary shapes drift.

_" I knew ...Everyone needs someone... He... has me now."_

The fawn drew away without a sound, the dot of a warm tear making a gray spot on Bubbles white dress.

* * *

"Well that was _**scintillating**_." Ursula sighed , giving the Talking Dog's hanging car prison another poke in the direction of the shark pool and snipping off another lock of Ms. Bellum's hair.

"Since our _guests_ have better things to do than saving your furry mouth monkey.."

She grinned toward the three boys reading and swinging happily on the battered swing set in the distance.

"It's time for.._**this**_!"

The depths of the black bag sharked and shuttered, a handful of what looked like colored dots weighting down her small claw.

Mr. Green raised an eyebrow.

"You're going to challenge us all to a game of bingo?'

The little demon laughed, drawing a diagram in doodled stick figures with a piece of chalk from her black bag, the lines dancing as if half alive.

"No...I would still win though..no these are much nastier. Normal killing is messy, this fun and doesn't stain! You see, put them on like this, and they make you remember and feel..your worst feeling and moment ever. _**Then it frys you brain**_. Just for fun, everyone goes to see your moment to!"

Mojo Jojo groaned, looking down where a small piece of paper danging from the month of a passing gremlin wearing what remained of his turban fluttered slightly.

His eyes widened with a forced frown.

"Tsk, tsk how very sad it is. I Mojo Jojo feel for you little girl. But I suppose all good things must come to an end and various habits of desired material practices will soon become overshadowed by what is to come."

Ursula flew down to his level, running a claw through the end of her pearl strung hair.

"What are you going on about monkey? Aren't you playing with me anymore?"

"On the contrary, I volunteer to be first to be exposed to your 'fun' torment..."

The sound of hundreds of taped up mouths gasping in surprise made Ursula look up. Myrdal followed her notice, giving the Mayor's nose a hard flick.

"Who can play at a time like this? Such a tragedy is to befall your small world and you don't even comprehend. No, it is too much..."

Mojo waved a hand, quickly snipped out of his trappings and slapped with two of the circles on his forehead with a flashing claw.

"A tragedy? Me? My world? What do you mean? Nothing can hurt me! And Daddy's always sure that.."

Mojo Jojo nodded, the small dots vanishing under his green skin.

"So it starts..."

The air above the gatherings heads rippled under the rain, filling with the outline of colors and shapes in the style of blacklight art shown through an old fashion projector. The lab of many years ago bubbled with beakers and burners, containers of every shape and size, with a far off wall supporting bottles marked A to Y.

" Yes, I do not blame you for being blissfully unknowing of the facts in the relation to their happenings. As I too was unaware. The only difference between our cases: your father desires to be 'daddy' of a boy. And once he is, he will forget you, utterly."

"That's silly! I'm daddy's primrose, and you're just a stupid ape!"

The little demon's shadow hid a moment of a baby chimpanzee looking outward to the world with large happy brown eyes, tumbling and eating a banana by stuffing the whole fruit into his cheeks and smiling.

"If only that were true, I thought I, once a chimp in adorable face and diapered bottom was all the parenthood my provider could wish for..."

A much younger Professor patted the long ago chimp on the head as he kissed his pink skinned brow.

"Is that true, Jojo? I never knew you felt so-" An older voice paused in his string of cat fueled screams, making the primate hop in surprise.

"You never asked! It, it does not matter to J-Mojo." Mojo turned from the Professor's arm, pushing it away. "Besides, I have work that must be finished and done and summaries that must be concluded."

"**I was first!** Out of hundreds I'm the star, **never replaced never left to die** after sending their one curse to ruin the world , **ever, ever**!"

The vision of the baby Jojo howled in silent rage, braking and spilling everything in his historic path.

"But those others, were they not female children as you are? Your daddy wishes for a son and once he has it, he will undoubtedly throw you out! To perhaps live in a leaky cardboard box . I suppose I could point you in the direction of a most hospitable alley...For three little kitties that have lost their mittens!"

Ursula shook from head to hoof, her scorpion tail tucked tight against her green gingham dress as both her claws reached up to hide the start of tears. Myrdal floated up with Suzette in her arms, offering a supportive half hug.

"**No...no..you're lying...you have to be...Daddy wouldn't...Papa couldn't...NO**!"

Mojo laughed long and hard, ripping the black bag away from Ursula as the crash of a twisted together preschooler size jungle gym came down other the demons, it's top supported by the mangled pink fur of Fuzzy Lumpkin.

"I's best be gettin' a new Joe for this here polecats being on my property."

The three girl faced lion cubs that now took up the small space of the makeshift cage mewed and hissed, stringing together pieces of half snared words with flicks of finger width scorpion tails.

"Oh yeah, go Mojo go!" Mojo Jojo hooted, waving his behind a safe distance from their stinging range. "It was all in the bag! I did not think that such a thing as a weakness that would be so _obvious_ to even a powerpuff such as Bubbles could be _true_. But this bag, this bag, oh ho!"

Mojo Jojo stroked the side of the black fabric as two wide shining yellow eyes stared, a clicking paw making batting grabbing motions through the twisted steel.

"You little demon children do not have _power_ here so you had to _borrow_ some from your _father_ in this bag of some sort of unlimited holding. Unaware that _I_, Mojo Jojo would see that separating you from ownership and overlooking a Lumpkin (who is , oddly enough very skilled at not being found if he does not wish to be) would..."

A low echoing hiss accompanied the sound of hundreds of bodies untied from their magical bonds.

"..Would break the spell keeping Ima locked up?" Mr. Green finished, his form shrinking back down to normal with a sigh of drained energy.

"But I thought!" Mojo gulped.

Mr. Green smiled, picking through the pile to help the Mayor and Ms. Bellum stand.

"Not magic, just Ima being Ima, _Ima wanting you_..."

* * *

"They are prepared."

Nicodemus opened the heavy white doors, leaning the three small girls linking hands in his shadow.

"_Knit one, curl two-or was it, knit two, cut five?-oops!_" A warm whisper echoed.

The cool air brushed in from a high open space cut in the room letting in the view of sky and cloud.

A golden train of fabric spilled across the floor from a floating white cushion where gloved fingers worked at the details of what looked like a spider's web string fast over a crystal loom.

"Oh!'

The hooded woman looked up from her work with a start, tumbling over backward in a mess of curls and grander.

High youthful cheeks blushed a deep blue under a oversized jewelers eye glass, hiding most of her features as she gathered herself back into a neat, dignified sitting position.

"Already? But they only just, oh, oh, bring them here let me see them just a bit more!"

Nicodemus smiled where he knelt, pushing the three forward gently.

"Of course Mother.'

The powerpuffs eyes now shown with bright, deeper shades of their iris' mirrored in their once black pupils, their skin softly lightened with the glittering fragments of stars on a moonless night.

"My ones, _**my dears.."**_

Her spoke, touching them each under the chin with a bare blue hand.

_**"My little fates. Past..."**_

Bubbles hair glowed a bright sunflower gold for a breath before fading.

_**"Present..."**_

Buttercup smiled, silver gloss fading in her black locks.

_**"Future..."**_

Blossom grinned, the ruby fire passing from her trademark bow.

_**"The world is set on your shoulders for all time. Treasure it..."**_

Her slipped her hand back into its glove.

_"And so will the game of good and evil begin again, in all the world as it was before...**let it be**."_

The golden bellows of her dress parted their extra folds revealing a shaken Him, looking very whole in a pair of white trousers, his legs folded up to his claws where his head rests on her ankle, rocking slightly.

"You have paid dearly the price that is custom, remember the key, Layfee, you may return to them."

Him's eyes opened, a green glow passing over them, fading to yellow.

"Oh, may I?" He laughed, his voice crackled and worn. "May I truly?"

Her slipped off the jewelers headset, her face disappearing into the dark hood again as the wisps of long blue curls turned away from the demon, standing slowly to scoop up the three small puffs.

"Who I have never loved, may she be forever nameless and without reach to the world she crafted..."

Him huffed, dotting circles of blush back onto his cheeks and looping the last unconscious puffs arms around his neck before glaring one last time over his shoulder.

"How could I forget that infeeernal key? I stole it quite fairly!"

A kiss blew from black lips as the four fell backward into empty sky.

* * *

**Oh no! This looks like the end of Townsville, that moment where everything comes crashing down around our ears!**

Among many vents offering up their orange embers to a red tinted sky where rain pasted moments ago, most of the remainder of Townsville, now resided clumped up on the top of a single telephone pole. The lowest of group, a large Godzilla like dinosaur, squealed like a cornered pig as the mythical medusa Sedusa took another swipe at his feet with her snakes, her deformed arms unequipped from climbing.

"Boys! The world is ending! I demand you save me and this world this instant!"

Mojo shook his fist at the very top of the pole, the small shapes that had been forced to leave their now lava eaten swings hovering nearby.

"Nah, if the world is really so ending, why's it only going up to the Farmsville county line?" Butch laughed.

"Yeah, in like, a perfect circle?" Boomer agreed.

"This is boring, we've got better things to do, see ya!" Brick waved, zipping away,

"But..but..." Mojo whimpered.

Brick zipped back, pulling down his bottom eyelid.

"And no more shining your butt light for us, got it?"

The three deep red, green, and blue streaks vanished over the horizon, leaving Mojo Jojo gaping in disbelief and the three manticore cubs with a small sigh of disappointment from their cage, still pinned under Fuzzy.

The Lumpkin banged the side of the bars with his shotgun and returned to polishing it, the volcanic vents going off around him missing the small island of earth they were resting on completely.

**Can no one hear the cries from the helpless rabble, the huddled masses yearning** **to free..er, I mean, alive?**

The Professor flew in at that moment, reaching a cat hair sprinkled arm out to Mojo at the poles very pit as the lava began to eat at its base. The beginning of a tear edged its way around the primates wide pink eye...

An ear spilling alarm cut though the split second, the failing life support and shielding systems around the pink and green colored capsules revealed in their hiding spot behind the remains of an already half disintegrated cereal company big rig.

"Girls! I'm coming!" The Powerprof tore out a clump of his gray sideburns, jetting off...and leaving Mojo Jojo leaning into thin air.

"Help...Jojo.." He peeped.

The collective crowd on the pole screamed as it gave part way, Sedusa sliding fully onto its side with her hands gripping inches from the blistering heat with a hiss, her hair snakes curling down to offer balance with their clamping jaws.

**Where is our hope, our dreams, our..what's that!**

The unseen point beyond the view of Townsville refocused itself to the sky above, a white hot ball of light like a falling star burning through the atmosphere.

**Could it be? It is! The Powerpuff Girls, they're comin' home baby!..Oh, baby...**

A blinding impact drove into the fragmented ground, freezing the surprised faces of the Mayor, Mojo, and the demon cubs halfway finished with a wire lock pick, the Professor not not even looking up from the two gel covered bodies now laying across his knees.

**...this isn't gonna be pretty. Hang in there girls, I'll just be over here...**

"_Aaaaah...hoooome..."_

An unearthly sigh rippled through everyone's minds as Him's body oozed, melting into the earth.

"_Oh, __**girls?**_" It rumbled again.

"Yes." One voice answered.

Three small translucent shapes in pastel pink, blue, and green darted from the spot, quickly skipping through the air and coming to rest on The Key To The World.

"Oh no you do not!' Mojo griped the golden key, its sudden bright glow forcing him to let go with a burn as it hovered up from his fingers.

The key came down quickly, turned in a tiny shimmer of what looked very like a keyhole at the point of impact, the top of a lobster like claw melting up from below, adding its power to the three lights.

"_Click_!" It proclaimed.

All of Townsville's citizens blinked in flabbergasted unison as the red tint suddenly faded from the sky, the lava pool around Fuzzy and their telephone pole pulling back into the earth with an anticlimactic 'pop'.

A single bluebird sang alighting on Mojo Jojo's head and cheerfully pecking at his exposed frontal lobe.

"Oh, what have I done..." The Professor sobbed.

Purple-gray eyelids fluttered.

"Professor?"

"Girls!" The Professor gasped, pulling the two nineteen year olds up with his powersuit like they were their long ago five year old selfs.

"Urgh, Proffessooor, when do we eat? I'm staving!" Buttercup asked, only able to hide half a giggle.

"Oh, Professor, we had the weirdest dream about where Him took us!" Blossom added, barely able to get the muffled words out over the side of the old chin giving her an even tighter cheek hug. "It seemed real at first but then it was just-"

Yards away a blue light flew to earth with a small sneeze, the outline of a very nineteen again and very pregnant Bubbles in the cut off shirt ,striped shorts and skirt of the everyday powerpuff girls uniform leaning against a building.

She away with a worried look as the wall collapsed under her light touch, waddling a few steps to carefully tip a lopsided mailbox back into place among the smoldering ruins.

"There! It's not so bad..." She smiled, catching sight of a familiar white suit.

"My little Bubbles!"

"Prooofeeesooor!" The neon blue streak zipped into his arms before the inventor had time to say another word. "Oh I missed you so much and we were away so far and-!"

"Oh I was worried so-Bubbles?" The Professor's face drew up, suddenly blank at the very noticeable extra space between the three. "Wha-you're-how?"

As Bubbles started to talk with bigger and bigger arm motions out of earshot , the citizens of of Townsville still stood more or less in three groups, the villains and ten story tall monsters looking just as frightened and lost as the normal humans.

Sedusa licked her lips, the top of her sniffing flat nose bobbing from Ace to a very fed up, still bluebird housing, Mojo Jojo.

"Hey there, let's not do anything crazy, you can keep the apartment 'n Spunk's happiest with you, no hard feelin's!" Ace shouted, ducking behind Big Billy.

"Why are you still after Mojo? I, who have so little nutritional and sexual content to speak of?"

"The heart of the pollo, both! _Boys_.." Li'l Arturo sighed to himself from his view on Big Billy's shoulder, lighting a cigarette.

"Well, well, _**what fresh hell is this**_?"

Him manticore form gathered into being from the dust, kneading the cracked soil between his clawed paws in a circle.

"_**Aaaah..."**_ He looked to the medusa and down to the cubs in their prison where the largest now happened to yelling in mile a minute french. _**"Ooo..."**_

A flash of black mane and muscle exploded into a tangle of screams, hisses and roars with the smaller monster before the onlookers could tell ether had moved, a strike pulling the blindfold away.

The blank white eyes burned, rolling back as her arms locked around Him's face, biting his neck with her own teeth while the hair snakes struck his back in a glossy rain.

Him's low, booming laugh rumbled, his long scorpion tail whipping forward and striking Sedusa between the shoulder blades.

They two froze for a split second before the manticore's suddenly unhinged three rows of teeth came down with a wet snap on the small section between the base of the many snakes and humanoid head, giving it a lustful shake.

Him let the lump body of Sedusa fall, licking a line of yellow venom from his black lips.

"_**Such fun**_! Soo, who's the oh so manly man who let Black Beauty out of her stable and reminded her she was still _**hot to trot**_, hmmm?"

Sedusa slowly faded back to her everyday appearance as Mr. Green ran up to her, quickly acting as a pillow for her now bald head and pointing in Mojo's direction.

"Oh? whyyy Mojooo..." Him's returning to demon body transformed into pink smoke, snaking by the chimp and half listening to his daughter's unwavering rant in french as he all but tossed the three into a dimensional hole with the other materialized claw. "I never thought you had it iiin you!"

"What, what do I have within me?" Mojo growled offering Him a sidelong look as his dusted his shoulder. "I will say this, you have..very smart girls, for their age..I suppose."

"Yes, I dooo don't I?" Him purred, looking at the small gathering around the Professor in the distance as the three cubs still mewed to his back.

Bubbles slow, sheepishly pointed palm in Him's direction drew a sudden silence from the crowd drifting in true Townsville ADD fashion from the mythical battle to the new engrossing voice of the blue powerpuff .

"YOU."

The professor locked eyes with Him at a distance.

"Hiya...Dad?" Him peeped hopefully.

The Professor flew forward with a flash of rocket boots and a primal scream of rage.

Him gulped.

The three powerpuffs sat peacefully together on a ruined roadside curb, watching Him being chased back and forth like it was a high speed game of ping pong.

With each pass the crowd following the demon by land and air grew bigger and angrier still, the only one coming closest behind the Professor on land a freshly awakened Sedusa.

"Hell!-"

"Hath!-"

"No!-"

Fury!"

The red blur managed to gasp out, Bubbles still looking oddly calm.

"Aren't you afraid they'll kill him?" Buttercup asked matter of factly munching on a king size candy bar as she used the back of a standing Ace for a makeshift chair.

"Nah, he's just finally getting what's coming to him...What came to him?" Bubbles frowned, picking through words in her mind. "Reaping his sewing? Oh, you know Bloss-OM!"

"What is it?" Blossom took Bubbles hand quickly, the sudden grip upon it making swear elegantly.

"The baby's..coming!" Bubbles hissed through clinched teeth.

The within earshot Professor fainted dead away in mid- cinematic leap.

Him nudged him with a boot.

* * *

Dandelion fluff passed in the sunny afternoon, twirling about the clean cut brick of Townsville Mercy Hospital, sitting untouched by it still devastated surroundings.

A green hand dusted the offending white speckles off a patched together purple striped turban.

"Really? You expect me to believe this, this, snake oil salesman?"

Came the muffled voice of Blossom through the glass as Mojo cracked the two story window a bit more, peeking in.

"Boxed, bottled, canned, or eatable mist?" Him smiled at the foot of the hospital bed a sudden assortment of glass containers with snake printed labels floating around his head.

Him sprayed a perfume bottle into his mouth with a lustful smack.

"Mmm, raspberry!"

"Aw, come on Blossom, I'm sure if he says he is he is, he old enough to be at least eight doctors-"

"Would everyone STOP FIGHTING!" Bubbles screamed, squeezing Blossom's palm on one side and Buttercup on the other and flinging them into the wall at each side of her pillowed head.

'Man, those contractions are nasty!" Buttercup rubbed her head, picking out drywall from her hair and Blossom was pealed off the vitals monitoring station by a very nervous RN.

Bubbles regular doctor, still looking quite well done from the last few days, was just as low key as Him picked him up from the doorway and all but plunked him down in front of the laying powerpuff.

"Oh, you're tooo kind, Buttercup, but I've changed my mind after all, let a bright, not sooo much younger than I, star have the honor of being haunted forever by the idea that he brought into the world-"

"WOULD YOU SHUT UP!"

Him purred hopping up in the air above her , just shy of where Bubbles was wordlessly contemplating biting his nose.

"Oh, Bubblikins, please call me what you did too pains ago? I sooo enjoyed it..."

The yellow walled room was already gathering gifts from well wishers much to the disappointment of a army of assistant nurses, weighted down with flowers, balloons, and a rather sinister looking baked good marked with 'congratulations, keep on goovin'! Boogie T. Man' that was making it's way with a slimy trail of plum jam across the freshly overwhelmed and floored Professor's forehead.

"Doctor Pitt?" Bubbles asked, taking in a long overdo breath. The doctor gave he as claim a look a look as he could manage, his pen flying across a notepad.

"Everything's just fine, you're doing wonderfully, better than wonderful! I've never seen, don't push, don't, here's the head!"

He dropped the pad barely in time as Him nearly shouldered him out of the way, the snipped black umbilical cord desegregating in his claw.

"It's a boy!"

Bubbles fell back and smiled at the ceiling titles like they were long lost friends.

The RN on call gave Him a sheering look, pushing him gently with a no nonsense hip and gaping in awe at the perfect clean little body before tucking the look away with a fluffy blue blanket.

A warm hush fell over the room and the chimpanzee on the windowsill as the bundle settled into it's mother's arms.

"Bastian..because that is his name." Bubbles whispered.

Light brown skin complemented a tuft of black peach fuzz standing upright in a lopsided cowlick above pillows of chubby cheeks.

His head was just shy of puffdom in width, supporting two large eyes opening after a yawn, their bright green color taking in the world with an unfocused wonder.

Across the interlinked puff palm and demon claw, five tiny fingers clasped tightly.

"Oh Bubbles, he's perfect!" Blossom breathed, waving her palm slowly and looking disappointed when his eyes seemed more interested in the shiny buttons on her sister's green denim jacket.

"So..tiny..." Buttercup only squealed, staring at a miniature five toed foot where it had escaped from the folds of the blanket.

She shook herself with as much dignity as she could manage.

"I mean, uh, I wonder if his skin's inviola..."

Him and Bubbles huddled together as one around the bundle in a flash, the louder of the two growls growing up from Bubbles.

"I wasn't gonna _hit_ him! It was a joke, haha?" Buttercup tried weakly to break the uneasy pause and silent reprimand of Blossom.

"C'mon Bassy, tell your ma I was kidding?"

Blossom sighed.

"So, is that short for Sebastian?"

"No." Him answered simply, his eyes never once having left the hand on his claw nor his voice touched over an odd whisper since his son's eyes had opened. "Besides, who am I to put an end to a perfectly marvelous naming tradition?"

"I, Buttercup Gretchen Utonium am not a baby puncher! I swear!" A desperate but completely unheard cry continued.

Him dotted the tip of his tongue to Bastion's tiny forehead.

"We've got the most wonderful place for you, yes we do, and more britches, dresses and toys than have ever been the envy of ten generations of boys, yes, m!"

Bubbles gave a weak laugh.

"And your grandpa 's hello if he ever comes to..."

A well known beeping sound rang over the hospital intercom, sending Bastian into the loud wails of his first cry.

"Oh no, not here of all the-" Blossom began, burying her face in her palms.

"Girls! I know this is a bad time but, um how do I put this.." The Mayor's voice echoed.

"Fuzzy?" Buttercup asked the one sided speaker, flying up to it.

"Mojo?" Blossom added, flying up to the other side.

"All the villains are attacking outside Townsville, HEEEELP!"

Blossom smiled, rolling up an invisible sleeve.

_Powerpuff! Powerpuff!_

"Alright girls, it looks like our job just got a whole lot bigger! Oh, Bubbles.."

_Blossom, Commander and the leader_

She turned back looking down at the bed from Bubbles flushed face to the newborn.

"You can sit this one out I know..."

Bubbles shook her head, slowly handing the baby off to Him's protective arms and streaking away, returning to the same spot re-dressed in her uniform.

"I want to come. I'll fight!"

_Bubbles, She is the joy and the laughter_

"But you just.." Her doctor sputtered, still taking notes on his pad in what now was a small ring of broken pencils, pen, and a very taken aback group of worldly looking professionals over a live video feed on his laptop.

"Don't you remember Doctor Pitt? We're _Power_puff Girls!"

"You certainly are..." The awed voice replied long after the three trails of light faded from the fresh crumbling hole in the ceiling.

_Buttercup, She's the toughest fighter_

Bubbles paused, zipping back quickly to kiss Him and bend in a longer kiss and hug for the baby before catching up to where her sister's hovered.

"Whoa, Bubbles, that was the most hardcore- you okay?" Buttercup asked.

"Ahhhuh.I'll..be okay.." Bubbles wiped away tears.

_Powerpuffs save the day!_

"So, Gretchen, huh?" Blossom asked with a forced brightness.

"Shut up Matilda!" Buttercup shot back.

"Our middle names aren't that bad, Professor worked so hard at them for our seventh birth..."

"Say's you, Clarabell."

Bubbles huffed, wheeling to just miss the mess in front of them.

" What I think it's _pretty_!"

Villains of all sizes, shapes and weirdness levels were running out of Townsville like water out of a bottle going downhill. Even ones they hadn't seen years!

Blossom caught the edge of what looked remarkably like a zombie as the three split up, Bubbles flying over to a mountain of pink fur that even now was turning butterflies into meatloaf.

_Oh no, it's the mad Fuzzy Lumpkins!_

"Not so fast Fu-"

"Ya like it? Turn's out Mojo's been keepin' it all pretty in his extra house, my meat'n gun!"

Bubbles gasped in horror at her reformed chicken drumsticked pigtail.

"Arggh, my hair!"

Buttercup looked back at the cloud of insects floating from the pack at her heels, doubling around to Him's spot of sky and catching a befuddled Roach Coach by the scruff of the dirt stained once white tanktop he barely wore over his beer gut.

_Watch out, it's the repulsive Roach Coach!_

"This, _this_ was what I was scared of, not the bugs!"

"Ick. Point taken!" Him gasped, shielding his and the babies nose with an arm a spraying a can of air fresher with the other.

The roaches around the unwashed villain's head turned belly up and fell from the sky along with their master.

_Get him, it's evil Mojo jojo!_

"Mojo when will you ever learn?" Blossom asked the lumbering robojojo at her heels made up of melted together gremlin bodies.

_Chasing evil, it won't stop..._

"I am learning!" Mojo laughed, shifting a joystick at the robots controls that looked remarkably like what was left of The Key To World. "I am now in touch with my emotional baggage!"

As the crowd of villains and their powerpuff followers went the shape of a small demon wearing boots much too big pulled a shoe back on in the air, hugging what looked like a battered teddy bear near and vanishing into a crimson hole in space.

_And then they'll be_

_Fighting crime, trying to save the world_

_Here they come just in time,_

_The Powerpuff Girls..._

"Bye bye mama, bye bye..." Him cooed in the direction of the fading blue light, tucking the tiny baby back into his blanket.

"Now where to start?" Him paused at a gruggle sound, winking. "Ah, at the beginning? Weeell..In the town where I was born, there lived a man who went to sea..."

"You ever get the feeling we forgot something?" Blossom asked as they flew farther and farther from Townsville.

A chuckle rose up from somewhere above and beyond the world before them, in a drained knowing tone. Somewhere, just beyond the edge of sight what looked like a white gloved hand perched the clouds, melting into dewdrops and edging backward.

**Sugar, spice, and everything nice,**

**these were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls...**

**But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction...**

Squirrels. Hundreds and hundreds of squirrels sat on the now yellow patched lawn of Townsville University.

"Blossom? Bubbles?" A small, worn voice pleaded, the frazzled red hair of Princess bobbing where she still hung from the flagpole by her sweater.

"Buttercup? Anyone? I promise I'll be nice...r!"

One of the countless squirrels climbed up her dress, presenting a cracked walnut at mouth level.

"Nooo, not more nuuuuuts!" Princess' wailed, the perfect burnt circle outline around Townsville smoking in the flag waving breeze.

* * *

_Epilogue_

On a pink journal page edged with sunflowers, words moved forward and back, written in black India ink.

Here and there pictures flowed between the written lines, shaded with watercolor wash and moving ever so slightly.

Every few paragraphs the telltale black smudges of tiny fingerprints came alive, spinning in their abstract existence.

_October 20th, 2013_

_Sooner or later everyone comes to the diner._

_If you learn to listen carefully enough you can tell it's not for the food._

_It has been better since Sedusa got the diner in the settlement though._

_I think Lyfee is adjusting very well to being just the cook and league singer._

_As much as he complains and jumps every time Ima threatens to have him sing "Old Fashion Love Song" and 'Jessie's Girl' again, he has put together the most handsome outfit with a ruffed pink collar and red tailored coat._

_Something about having an older style he says he once had before makes even his flapjacks taste better!_

_Ima seems happy to, even if the cafe doesn't make much money. It's amazing how well she can still work with Suzette strapped to her back!_

_I know I couldn't trust Bastian anywhere near so many hot, pokeable, breakable things!_ (A half handprint with 'See what I mean?' written next to it broke up the page)

_Mr. Green comes by all the time now with flowers for her, but usually ends up going out the back doors eating them with a sad face_

_Mojo doesn't come at all, but every week when we visit the professor's lab there is always a messy mixer with a little banana milkshake left behind..I wonder..._

_Buttercup is talking about getting the old band back together if we change the name from 2nd_ _Hand Puppies to "SHP" or something 'cool'. Something about a stage name to, Belladon...? I forget..._

_My art is starting to get noticed to, and well...I have a good feeling...It feels like it's going to be an early spring..._

_(_At the bottom of the page a watercolored demon in a ruffed collar broke off a branch of a nearby cloud like cherry tree in full bloom, holding it over the head of a blonde haired figure and her wrapped up baby as they walked, rain of washed out blue ink beginning to fall.)

* * *

The lights inside the diner were dim after last call, the white tables and red and white titled floors soaking up muted tones of yellow car head lights and the steady glow of the half broken streetlight on the corner.

A green clawed hand swirled the last inch of red wine in his glass, the reflected glint of his silver nose-ring long stained with black dried blood.

"Not so much as a thank you or a little kiss..."

A voice no louder than a dream whispered.

"I guess it's true what they say, monsters aren't worth the time a day..unless that day is being crushed under a human boot..forever and ever...'

Mr. Green's one good eye flashed as he looked up with the sound of broken glass.

His empty right eye socket pulsed.


End file.
